My Old Son
by Pickwick12
Summary: All about the developing relationship of Gotham's Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth as they cope with the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne, because they deserve more fanfiction. Will follow the show but have original content. Potential spoilers for any episodes that have aired on US TV.
1. The Littlest Wayne

**The Littlest Wayne**

Alfred hasn't held a baby in years when Martha Wayne brings home her late-life child. He's a beautiful boy, with dark hair and big, deep eyes. Thomas, the proud father, says they'll hire a nurse or a nanny to help care for the child while his wife, who's not the youngest of mothers, regains her health.

The butler says no. The moment he takes the boy in his arms and stares down into the face of Bruce Wayne, he knows that there will never be a need for another caretaker. He's besotted with the child, a perfect combination of two people he has come to love deeply.

He takes to caring for the baby with relative ease, the way he's always been able to care for people, no matter their ages. Bruce doesn't cry often. He's more given to quietly looking around him, as if he's memorizing every detail about the world.

On long winter nights, while Thomas and Martha attend an endless stream of charitable functions, Alfred sits at home in the giant wing chair in the library, with the littlest Wayne held to his chest, and he is happy.

Six months after Bruce's birth, Thomas and Martha ask Alfred to eat dinner with them. They wouldn't mind if he ate at the table every night, but he likes to preserve the formalities. This time, though, he honors their wishes and sits down to supper with them.

"Alfred," says Thomas, smiling, "we have a request for you. Please don't feel obligated. It's not part of your job."

Martha takes up where he left off. "We're going to modify our wills to include Bruce, and—we'd like to ask you to be his guardian if anything ever happens to us."

Alfred stares down at his plate of roast beef and wills himself to breathe evenly. He has done many things in his thirty-eight years, but suddenly, none of them seem important any more, not as important as this moment. No one has ever trusted him with something so precious.

"If you'd like to think about it, that's fine," says Thomas, still smiling in his easy way.

Alfred does think about it. He thinks of the tiny boy asleep in his crib and the smiles that catch him off guard every single day. He imagines the future, of picking Bruce up from school, hearing about his first girlfriend, watching him learn to drive.

He says yes. Of course he says yes. He cannot imagine a world in which anyone else takes away the privilege of caring for Bruce Wayne.


	2. Three People

**Three People**

Bruce Wayne has three people.

He has a mom, who is pretty, and smiles, and smells of the spices in her perfume. He adores her with all the force of his four-year-old personality, which is considerable. He doesn't know that he's intelligent or that he understands things most children his age can't comprehend. He also doesn't know that most children don't live in houses like Wayne Manor. What he does know is that he likes to sit quietly on his mother's dresser while she does her hair and puts on her makeup. She's like a princess from one of the fairy tales his father loves to read to him.

His father, Thomas Wayne, is a doctor. Bruce loves to touch the tools he brings home, like the stethoscope that lets him hear his heartbeat. He does not know that some children have angry, impatient fathers who don't let them rifle through their briefcases or patiently answer every question they ask. What he does know is that his father is the smartest man in the world, because he knows all the things Bruce can't wait to wonder about. Every night his father is home, Bruce drifts off to sleep to the sound of his low voice reading stories that fill his mind with thoughts of knights and kings. The other nights, when his father isn't home, there's Alfred.

Bruce thinks all children have an Alfred. Alfred isn't his father or his mother. He's the one who bandages Bruce's knees when he falls down while his parents are gone. He knows he's not supposed to run in the house; there's too much to knock into. Alfred scolds him, but he isn't angry. He puts something under the bandage that makes the pain go away. Alfred is also the one who makes him peanut butter sandwiches for dinner when Thomas and Martha are away for the evening. He cuts the crusts off; Bruce is a picky child. When it's time for bed, Alfred doesn't sing, like Martha, or read fairy tales, like Thomas. He changes Bruce into his pajamas and takes him to the library. Bruce invariably falls asleep with his head on his butler's chest, the cocoon of Alfred's arms around him. He loves his parents, but in those nights, he doesn't miss them because he feels perfectly safe.


	3. Polishing

**Polishing**

Alfred is polishing the silver. It's the most clichéd job for a butler, but it's still one that has to be done. The Waynes entertain regularly, and it wouldn't do for their guests to be served with anything but the finest china and the heirloom silver. He doesn't mind, anyway. He finds it meditative to polish each piece to sparkling clarity. Some jobs, like the dusting and laundry, are never really done. As soon as one room or load is complete, another demands attention. But the silver reaches pristine perfection under his hands piece by piece, and he experiences the satisfaction of a job well done.

He's mid-fork when he feels a tug on the edge of his sleeve. "Master Bruce, are you all right?" He's instantly attentive to the six-year-old at his side. The little boy nods, but stares up at him with a quizzical expression.

"What's a butler, Alfred?" he finally asks.

"Me, Master Bruce," he says with a smile, thinking this is the easiest question the inquisitively-minded child has ever asked him. Usually, he finds himself surreptitiously checking Google on his phone to try to answer queries like, "Alfred, why is the sky blue?" or "Alfred, what are soccer balls made out of?"

But Bruce isn't satisfied. "I know that," he says, sounding indignant at the slight to his intelligence. "My teacher at Kindergarten said you're our butler," he explains, but then his face falls a little bit. "I didn't know what she meant, though."

Alfred thinks hard. This isn't as easy as he thought. He doesn't want to bring the idea of money and income discrepancy into a discussion with a six-year-old, and he doesn't want to talk about Ironing and cooking; that's not the heart of his job, anyway. But those dark, intense eyes are staring up at him, demanding an answer.

Finally, Alfred kneels down to be at eye level with the little boy. "What do you think I do here, Master Bruce?"

"That's easy," says the little boy. "You take care of us."

"Exactly," Alfred answers, relieved. "That's exactly what a butler is, the one who takes care of you."

He stands up and puts his big hands around the child's middle, lifting him onto the table next to where the piles of sliver lay. Bruce has a strangely long attention span for a child, and he curls his legs under him and watches silently as Alfred polishes each piece. After a while, the butler hands him the cloth and a spoon. "Want to try?" With delicate carefulness, Bruce repeats the motions he's seen Alfred do, and he slowly brings out the shine in the previously-dull piece of cutlery. "Very good, Master Bruce," says Alfred, taking it from him and proudly laying it in the finished pile.

He enjoys teaching Bruce. It might not be particularly useful for the heir to the Wayne fortune to know how to polish cutlery, but there are other things Alfred knows how to do that neither Thomas nor Martha Wayne can teach their son, things he learned in his past life. He's saving most of those for later, for when Bruce is closer to manhood, but he's already experimenting, teaching himself how best to teach the boy. He has a feeling it will come in handy some day.

Bruce's mother and father are brilliant people who adore their son, but they have carved out a place for the butler in Bruce's life, and Alfred is grateful. He doesn't mind the act of polishing, gently repeating the same motion over and over, until he's able to bring out the absolute best in something, and Bruce Wayne is a lot more valuable to him than silver forks.


	4. Old Son

**Old Son**

Bruce is angry, and he doesn't know why. Sometimes he hears his parents talking quietly, and they whisper that he's entering adolescence early, that it's not unexpected for a child as precocious as he is to start being moody at nine. After all, he's always been intense.

These days, his relationship with Alfred is a little bit different from how it used to be. He knows now what a butler is, not just for the Waynes, but in general. He understands that Alfred is an employee. Alfred feels it; Bruce can tell.

Truth is, Bruce doesn't exactly know why he's started to resent Alfred, but he can feel that the butler's expectations for him are changing. He's no longer just teaching him things like how to polish silver; he's training him to be a Wayne. "Stand up straight, Master Bruce. Don't be rude, Master Bruce. Look at people when you're speaking to them, Master Bruce."

He's always been a well-behaved child, his transgressions more about curiosity and testing than outright rebellion. But his feelings are going haywire these days, and sometimes, when the butler takes a certain tone, Bruce just stands in front of him with his arms folded. He doesn't say no, but there's no acquiescence, either.

Alfred has never been a disciplinarian. The relatively few times in his life when Bruce has needed correcting, it's been Thomas or Martha who make the decisions. They're not particularly strict parents, but they do expect respect. He doesn't disrespect Alfred around them, and the butler never tells on him. That's how, at nine years of age and four months, Bruce Wayne and his butler reach an unhappy stalemate that includes an angry little boy and a—well, Bruce doesn't know how Alfred feels about it. He figures the man is probably too angry at him to ever want to talk to him again. He's slammed too many doors.

It's a Tuesday night, and Thomas and Martha don evening clothes to attend a hospital opening. "Can't I come?" Bruce asks, not wanting to be left in the house with the butler.

"I'm sorry, but you need to be bright for school tomorrow," says his mother, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead. "Alfred will take care of you."

Alfred will take care of you. He doubts it.

That's why, when his parents leave, he barricades himself in his room and doesn't come out, even when it's the normal time for dinner. A few minutes past, he hears a sharp knock on his locked door. "Master Bruce!" Alfred doesn't sound happy. "If you're not planning to eat dinner, I'm going to pack it up and give it to the homeless children on the street." The butler has never resorted to threats, and he's never actually punished Bruce. The child sits on his bed and curls up into his bedspread, not wanting to face the man's wrath.

The problem is, Bruce's stomach doesn't get the message. An hour passes, then another, and he's so hungry he feels like eating the stuffing out of his pillow. Finally, a timid Bruce Wayne peeks out of his bedroom door and finds the hallway empty. He's a far cry from the angry, defiant boy who has filled Wayne manner with the slamming sounds of his wrath. He's just a little boy who wants dinner. And he wants Alfred, but he's afraid Alfred doesn't want him.

Reluctantly, he makes his way through the house, relieved that he doesn't have to face his butler unexpectedly. When he gets to Wayne Manor's spacious kitchen, he peeks around the open doorframe and sees Alfred with his back turned to him, washing dishes across the room.

The man has always had extremely keen hearing, and he turns as soon as Bruce sets foot in the room. "Master Bruce?" He doesn't look angry; the little boy is glad, but his heart keeps pounding.

"I—I'm sorry, Alfred. Could I have something to eat?" He sounds like a child, and he knows it.

In an instant, the butler's face melts into a smile. "Of course you can, but first—" He opens his arms and inclines his head. It's an invitation Bruce never expected, and he rushes into the man's embrace with a vehemence that surprises even him.

Alfred's arms close around him, and he relaxes into the comfort, feeling months of anger and misunderstanding melt away in a few important moments. "My old son," the butler murmurs, "I'll always take care of you. Never forget that."


	5. Understandings

**Understandings**

"Oy, Master Bruce, what have I told you about hiding behind the curtains and scaring me half to death?"

Alfred is dusting the windowsills of Wayne Manor, and for the third time in a month, he finds a dark-haired boy waiting for him behind a thick, gray curtain. Bruce hangs his head a little, but he also smirks out one side of his mouth. He knows Alfred is a little bit proud of his ability to hide so well. They have an understanding now, and the butler doesn't really mind. He gives Bruce a whack on the shoulder that is really more of a pat, and propels him out into the sitting room.

They've passed the hardest times, Alfred lets himself hope. At twelve, Bruce now knows exactly what a butler is, but he also knows Alfred Pennyworth is more than that. Sometimes, the older man lets himself think of the boy as a nephew. He's more open than ever in his critiques of behavior. Bruce is nearly a teenager, and he knows the Waynes look to him to help prepare their child for a very difficult life lived in view of a critical public. The boy is also more open with him, not that Bruce Wayne is ever one to communicate much in words. It's more about the tone of the words he does use and his willingness to ask the man who just yelled at him to eat his vegetables for advice about how to talk to the smartest girl in English class.

Alfred cares; Bruce knows. It's that simple and that complicated. The butler likes to hope that the boy cares back, not that he would ever admit it to anyone. He's human, after all, and he has no family of his own.

That night, the Waynes go to the opera, and Alfred takes a rare but well-earned night off. Before he leaves, he hears a familiar tap on his bedroom door and opens it to find Bruce with necktie in hand. "Could you do a Windsor Knot, Alfred?" the boy asks earnestly. "It's my mom's favorite."

"Of course, Master Bruce," the butler answers, not caring in the least that he's technically been off for two hours. He stands in front of the child and takes the impossibly small tie and places it around the boy's neck. "Watch and learn," he instructs, making the folds and loops slowly and deliberately. When he's finished, he turns Bruce toward the floor-length mirror. "I think that'll do. What about you?"

Bruce flashes a rare grin that entirely changes his sober face into something lighter and more childlike. "Thanks, Alfred!" He leaves the room quickly, calling for his parents.

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><p><strong>Because I'm evil and such, I hope this one hits you deeply in the feels. Thanks for the comments and messages. I love you all. We're (obviously) getting to where the show starts, so expect analysis of what we've seen so far. I'd like to say something about this version of Alfred 1) I don't think he's evil or abusive. It's incredibly obvious to me that he cares deeply about Bruce and is desperately worried about him. All of his reactions have struck me as completely genuine for a parental figure who sees his sonward standing on the edge of a very tall roof or deliberately injuring parts of his body. 2) I don't expect Alfred at this point in the timeline to act exactly like Alfred in 20 years. Will he grow into that? Of course. But at the moment, he's an unmarried, Marine veteran butler trying to come to terms with being the primary caretaker of an angry, complicated, and extremely intelligent adolescent child. **

**p.s. Yes, Bruce likes the smartest girl in English class. Because he does. Hmmph**


	6. Necktie

**Necktie**

Necktie, necktie, Bruce sees Alfred and remembers the comforting feeling of the butler's hands as he helped him form the Windsor Knot his mother loves. Loved. She's gone.

He flings off his black shock blanket and runs helter-skelter toward the one person left whose arms he's absolutely sure will be open for him. Alfred doesn't disappoint, accepting him into his embrace and holding him tightly. For a moment, Bruce's feet don't touch the ground. For a moment, all he feels is comfort.

Then, his dress-shoed feet hit the asphalt once again, the asphalt that welcomed the bodies of his parents as they bled out. It's the most blood he's ever seen.

Alfred speaks quietly to him. Instructions, like the military officers in war movies. He tells him to keep going, not to let anyone see him cry. Bruce knows he simply means, "Be brave." He also knows, through the haze of his shock and grief, that Alfred is trying to keep him safe. He's well aware of the audience that follows the Wayne family wherever they go. His father has told him time and time again that he has a responsibility to the city and that he must be strong so that no one can attack him for being weak.

Alfred's big arm stays across his back for the whole way to the car. He's glad. Everything is freezing cold, and he puts his hand on his necktie, remembering his mother's delighted expression when she saw it and the warmth in her voice when she complimented his choice. "You're so handsome, Bruce," she said. "Just like your father." His parents had kissed. He'd made a face. Now he wishes he hadn't.

They don't speak until they reach Wayne Manor. "Would—you like me to help you get into your pajamas, Master Bruce?" Alfred asks. It's not a normal request at this age, but Bruce nods. He doesn't think he can do anything on his own.

The butler's hands are roughly gentle as they unbutton him to slip his black Egyptian cotton pajamas over his head. Bruce hasn't cried in over an hour, but tears run down his face as he slowly unties the Windsor Knot around his neck. He feels like he's untying his family from his heart.

"No, not those," he says quickly, softly, desperately. The cotton pajamas were a Christmas gift from his father the year before. He can't stand to wear them.

"Which ones, then?" Alfred asks, not arguing.

"Just—just a T-shirt and shorts," Bruce says. It's not his normal sleep attire, but Alfred hands him clean gym shorts and slips a soft, threadbare gray T-shirt over his head.

Bruce gets into bed of his own accord, staring blankly at the ceiling above him. Alfred pulls the leather chair away from the boy's wooden study desk and pulls it over next to his charge. "It's ok, Alfred," says Bruce. "You can go." His voice hitches. He can't stop the tears that keep coming, coming, coming, over and over.

"Not tonight, Bruce," says the butler, reaching over to stroke the shiny, dark hair that falls over the little boy's forehead.

He can't remember a time when Alfred hasn't used "Master" to address him. He turns on his side and looks into the face of his butler, wondering what the older man is thinking, not minding the touch of his hand. He doesn't believe he'll ever sleep again, but finally he falls into slumber, tired from grief and soothed by Alfred's closeness.


	7. Climbing

**Climbing**

The next morning, Alfred is jolted from his uncomfortable sleep in Bruce's desk chair by the sound of the little boy moving around. He rubs his bleary eyes; he might have slept a total of an hour all night. He didn't want to miss any signs of the boy being distressed. Thankfully, sheer weariness appeared to keep the boy from nightmares, and Alfred had finally allowed himself a short doze as early morning approached.

"I'll fix your breakfast," he says, as soon as Bruce's eyes open.

The boy shakes his head. "I'm not hungry. Could I be alone?"

"Of course," says Alfred, getting up and replacing the chair behind his charge's desk. He doesn't think missing a meal will be harmful, and he certainly doesn't want to force the boy, not on this day of all days.

The butler was once a Marine, not that many people who have encountered him in his current life are aware of it. He has seen many men die, and he has seen other men deal with those deaths in their different ways. Some grieve loudly, some silently, and he has never thought it was his to judge how another person processes pain. That's why he leaves Bruce Wayne's room without another word. One part of him wonders if it's wise, but another part holds him back from trying to steer the child's emotions away from something neither of them can escape.

Truthfully, Alfred can't eat either. He keeps himself busy by starting on the massive list of tasks he knows must be set into motion. His first call is to Bruce's school, to withdraw him for the time being. He doesn't know if the change will be permanent, but he's perfectly competent to school the boy at home. It wouldn't be right, he thinks, to subject Bruce to the stares and the whispers. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Next, he calls about funeral arrangements. The Waynes had been thorough; they had long since set a plan into motion that only requires him to say "yes" to one man, and everything is set. He doesn't call Wayne Enterprises. He knows they'll call him.

His list dwindles more quickly than he'd like, and he gets up to check on Bruce, peeking into the living room to find the boy sitting on the floor, staring at nothing. He resists the urge to enter, to ask questions. He does not want to intrude on needed solitude.

It's late afternoon, and Alfred has done everything he can think of to do, other than let himself think about Thomas and Martha Wayne. He prepared lunch, but Bruce never came to eat it, and neither did he. He does another pass over the house to find Bruce, but this time, he doesn't find him.

Trying not to be unduly frantic, Alfred goes outside the house and starts looking around the grounds, when his gaze travels up. He sees the toes of a familiar pair of brown Oxfords peeking over the edge of the roof. His heart contracts, and he can't breathe, but still he yells.

"Bruce! Get off the roof THIS INSTANT!" His tone is harsh; he doesn't care. He would rather see tears fall from the child's eyes than his body fall off the Wayne Manor roof.

To his relief, he's obeyed. Within a couple of minutes, a sheepish Bruce is standing in front of him, eyes downcast. Alfred lifts the boy's chin, forcing him to meet his eyes. "What was that about, Master Bruce?"

"I—I don't want to be afraid anymore," says the child. That's all. No more explanation than that.

Alfred closes his eyes. He has no idea what to do. He puts his hands on Bruce's shoulders. "No more climbing on the roof, or I'll never let you out of my sight again," he says, not unkindly.

"Ok," says Bruce, pulling free of his grasp and running back into the house without looking back. Alfred shakes his head. He's out of his depth.

By nighttime, Alfred can't think of a single additional unnecessary task to take his mind away from the grief that threatens to overtake him. Bruce has been back in his spot on the living room floor for the past two hours, and the butler has no idea what he should do, so he lets him stay there.

Weary, he takes off all his extra layers of clothing, until he's only wearing his dress slacks and an untucked white shirt. Seeking his own kind of comfort, he makes his way to the library, to the wing chair where he used to spend night after night lulling Bruce to sleep. Finally, he lets himself think. He allows his mind to drift to the faces of Thomas and Martha Wayne, the kindest people he's ever had the privilege of knowing. Like family.

Alfred props his elbow on the armrest of his chair and buries his face in his hand, feeling sobs wrack his body. He's been strong; he can't be strong forever. He has seen too many people die to believe the lie that grief can be subsumed permanently.

He doesn't know how long he cries before his ears pick up the soft sound of feet padding across the library carpet. He looks up, his eyes soaked with tears, to find Bruce in the doorway. He tries to smile, and the boy comes closer.

It's been years since Bruce Wayne has sat in anyone's lap. He's at the age where even his mother has had to steal hugs and kisses for the past few years. This night, much to Alfred's surprise, Bruce climbs into his lap exactly has he did when he was five years younger. He burrows deep into the butler's arms, as if he can't get deep enough, and the older man holds him as tightly as he can. He's still small, light and easy to hold. They neither one speak.

Alfred doesn't think Bruce has cried all day, but the boy presses his face into his butler's shoulder and weeps, hard tears that seem to come from somewhere deeper than shock. They're tears of real grief, of a boy trying to figure out what it means to lose almost everything. Alfred cries too, into Bruce's hair. He has no desire to conceal his pain from the child. He doesn't know how to handle everything, but he definitely knows that when a person grieves, having another to share that grief is better than nothing. The butler cradles his ward in his arms, and he feels more comfort than he has all day.


	8. Pain

**Warning: This chapter contains references to self-harm. **

**Pain**

Bruce is in his bathroom, running water over his fingers. He's bleeding. It's his own fault. He feels guilt, coming from somewhere deep and confusing. But he also knows he'll do it again. He's afraid of blood. It makes his stomach clench. That's why he has to bleed.

Fear is his enemy. Fear is what kept him from doing something the night his parents died.

"Master Bruce, are you all right?" Alfred's voice is concerned. "You've been in there an awfully long time." The boy blinks hard. Tears want to fall from his eyes, tears from the pain he's caused himself and the fear he can't help reliving, over and over, to try to make it go away.

"I'm fine, Alfred."

His butler is too smart for that. "You don't sound fine," he answers. "I'm coming in." He has picklocks. They've always had them in Wayne Manor. Bruce's father said they were in case there was a fire, so no one would be left behind.

The boy shuts off the water, but the trickle of red keeps falling from his thumb into the sink. He can't make it stop. He turns quickly when Alfred enters, standing almost at attention, closing his hand and willing the blood to stop coming.

"What's going on?" Alfred asks, scanning him quickly with his eyes. "You look paler than normal. Are you feeling well? What's—why is your hand bleeding?" Before Bruce can stop him, the butler takes the fingers of his left hand and gently unclenches them, seeing the red that stains his palm. Alfred's eyes widen. "That doesn't look like an accident to me, Master Bruce." The boy shakes his head, shifting his eyes so he doesn't have to meet the older man's.

"Why?" Alfred asks, even as he goes to the cabinet above the sink and pulls out a box of bandages, some peroxide, and a roll of surgical tape.

"I'm going to stop being scared," Bruce says, standing motionless with his hand outstretched.

Alfred comes over to him and begins working, his capable hands fashioning a bandage with enough pressure to stem the bleeding. "What—exactly—are you hoping to accomplish by giving yourself unnecessary pain?" The man's touch is gentle, but his tone is frustrated.

"I want to be strong," says Bruce.

The butler stops and puts his hands on the boy's shoulders. Somehow, the touch is comforting, even though Bruce can see that Alfred is angry. "Don't ever do something like this again," says the older man. "I—I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you, too." He walks away, leaving the boy standing in the middle of his bathroom, with tears stinging his eyes.

He will do it again. However much he doesn't want to, however much everything in him recoils at the thought, he knows that he will test himself again. Until-.

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><p><strong>I hope this chapter and the few following will seem respectful and sensitive to the topics mentioned. As someone who has struggled with self-harm, I write from a place of some internal understandingidentification with the issue. Gotham hasn't entirely unpacked Bruce's psyche for us yet, but it's pretty clear that there's a fine line between his desire to expel is fear and a desire to, perhaps, punish himself for his parents' deaths.**


	9. Frustration

**This chapter is dedicated to ButterflyFirefly. Thanks for being a great reader.**

**Warning: More mentions of self-harm. **

**Frustration**

Bruce is nowhere to be found.

It's a few days after the funeral, and Alfred has been trying to get the letters and emails from well-wishers in order, in case the boy ever wants to look at them. The problem is, there's no longer anyone else to look after Bruce when Alfred is busy. Normally, it would be all right to leave a twelve-year-old boy alone in another room of the house for a couple of hours, but not any more.

In the days since the shooting, Alfred has seen something in his ward's eyes that he's never seen before, some combination of fear, purpose, and anger, all wrapped up in confusion. He's bandaged bleeding fingers and only just stopped the boy from putting his hand in boiling water, and he's started to live his days afraid of what the next crisis will be.

He has no idea what to do. He promised, long ago, to take care of the Waynes' only child, and he would gladly give his life doing so. But he has no idea how to protect a child who is bent on hurting himself.

He has wondered if he should try to punish the boy, to use outside force to restrict inward impulses. But he can't restrict a child who has no interest in going anywhere, and Alfred recoils at the idea of any sort of physical punishment, certainly not of a child as old as Bruce Wayne and one who's going through deep grief.

The thing is, when he looks deep into Bruce's eyes, he realizes that the boy doesn't want to hurt himself. There's something else, some inward impetus that compels him to do exactly what he doesn't want to do.

The butler has suggested therapy, strongly, many times, and been met with stony silence. Under his breath, he has cursed Thomas Wayne's insistence that Bruce be allowed to make his own choices. Alfred is duty-bound to fulfill his promise, but he's begun to hate it.

He checks the roof, but Bruce isn't on it. From there, he goes over the house, room-by-room, terrified of what he may find. Finally, when he's near the end, he sees a door that is only open a crack and catches the scent of smoke.

Alfred Pennyworth prides himself on his patience. He has played the unflappable butler many a year. But when he sees Bruce Wayne's hand, his own fear threatens to choke him to death. "Stupid little boy" comes out of his mouth before he's had time to form a coherent thought, and he finds his hands around the child, but what he really wants is to throttle whatever it is inside Bruce Wayne that won't let the little boy go.

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><p><strong>I know some people want to see Alfred being more proactive as an authority figure, but I don't think we're there in the relationship yet, and I'm still waiting to see where Gotham takes us. <strong>


	10. Deserving

**Warning: More mentions of self-harm.**

**Deserving**

"You, My Old Son, are a terrible liar."

When he hears _My Old Son_, Bruce dares to hope that maybe Alfred won't get angry. It's not the roof or the water or the knives. This time, it's the candle. He's never done that before. It's not like the butler can say he disobeyed a direct order.

At the same time, part of the boy feels like he deserves to have someone get angry at him. Everyone's been so _nice_, and he feels terrible inside. His hand feels like it's on fire, but it's what he deserves for being too afraid to act, too frozen to stop what happened in the alley that night.

Alfred says it's not his fault, but he doesn't believe him. Alfred wasn't there to see him when he just stood and watched a man shoot his father and his mother. Alfred didn't see how afraid he was.

He hates his fear, and he hates himself for feeling it. He's determined to conquer it, no matter how much pain it takes. The pain is good; it's a reminder of when he was weak, that he must never be weak again.

But he's still a little boy. Part of him wants to run into his mother's room and bury his face against her shoulder and feel her stroke his hair and tell him it's ok, that the things in his mind are less important than he thinks they are. That's what she always said when he had fears or nightmares. Somehow, she could always remind him that the world around him was bigger and brighter and better than the dark thoughts inside. But her room is empty now.

He has one person left, and that one person is the butler standing in front of him, demanding that he show the evidence of his pain. Slowly, he opens his hand, aware that he can't escape.

That's when Alfred's face changes, and Bruce's fear meets his shame. The older man grabs him, and he's absolutely sure he's going to get the comeuppance he deserves. He's terrified, but he doesn't struggle. He has no right to try to get away.

But no pain comes for him. Instead, through his island of fear and shame, he feels himself pulled into a sea of comfort, subsumed completely by the feeling of Alfred's entire self wrapped around him, holding him close, keeping him safe against his own feelings. "It's going to be all right."

Bruce's eyes close as he finally sinks into the solid comfort Alfred provides. Maybe—he lets himself hope—maybe if Alfred thinks he's still worth something, it could be a little bit true.

* * *

><p><strong>I know I'm spending a lot of time on this one scene, but I think it was a pretty important one from both their perspectives. Hang tight and stay tuned for Gotham's nicest cop to make an appearance pretty soon.<strong>


	11. Better

**Better**

"Stupid little boy."

It's Bruce's face that stops Alfred in his tracks, the look of absolute fear and dread, mixed with something that looks like resignation. The butler has never claimed to be perfect, and he doesn't know how to be a father, but he wants to hit himself for being the one to put that look on the little boy's face. All he wants is to see peace in those deep, troubled eyes.

Nothing works, nothing he tries to do, day in and day out, to comfort Bruce Wayne. He cooks the boy's favorite foods, and Bruce won't eat them. He checks on him every night, makes sure the blanket is up around his thin shoulders, only to see, in the morning, that the child has dark circles around his eyes that indicate he's hardly slept at all. He tries to distract him, but the moment they finish Bruce's daily schoolwork—he's intelligent, and it doesn't take that long—the boy is back to brooding over his drawings or his computer, and Alfred knows exactly what's on his mind.

He's not surprised, really, when the breaking point comes. After all, he, too, has hardly slept for several nights, between his guilt about not being there the one night the Waynes needed him most and his deep fear that one day, the little boy will go too far, and he won't be there to stop him.

It all bubbles to the surface when he sees Bruce's hand, but the moment Alfred realizes what he's done, that he's the one who's gone too far, his sleep-deprived, worried mind gives him the one idea that he needs most.

There's one thing that always works with Bruce Wayne. It might not be a permanent solution. It might not even last an hour, but it can fix a moment, of that Alfred is sure.

The butler kneels on the ground and puts his arms around the boy, feeling, again, how small Bruce is, how much of a child is still inside him. "I'm sorry," he says, meaning it, willing the tormented boy in his arms to give in to his affection.

And it works. For a single, comforting moment, Alfred feels Bruce relax against him as his breathing slows and the fear seeps out of him. He cradles the boy's head against his shoulder and strokes Bruce's dark hair, wishing for all the world that he could turn himself into Martha Wayne.

After a while, Bruce breaks away, and Alfred gets up, gratified to see that the look in his charge's eyes is a lot less frantic than it was. He puts his arm around the boy's shoulders and guides him to the kitchen. Wordlessly, he breaks off a piece of the aloe plant he keeps in the window and lets its juice drain onto the child's burn.

"Better?" he asks.

"Better," Bruce answers.

That's more than Alfred has been able to hope for for a very long time.


	12. Grim Eyes

**Grim Eyes**

"There will be light."

James Gordon is a grim-eyed cop with cop shoes and cop hair. Bruce has seen lots of cops. His parents used to tell him that if ever he was in danger, the police would be there to help. They haven't said that for a long time.

None of the other cops sit with him. One hands him a blanket, then goes back to writing in a notebook. Another one is on a phone. A crowd starts to gather, and whispers of "It's the Waynes" echo.

Bruce feels more alone than he's ever felt in his life. That's when Jim Gordon, the grim-eyed cop with cop shoes, sits down next to him and tells him a story. It's a sad story about a boy who saw his father die right beside him.

If the boy had heard the story the previous day, he would have felt sorry. Today, it pierces him with the knife blade of shared pain. Those grim eyes contain the memory of the same agony he feels. Gordon leans close, closer than normal. Bruce doesn't mind. It's as if he's sinking in quicksand, and someone cares enough to hold out a hand.

* * *

><p>Bruce checks the news like most children eat chocolate cake, obsessively, cramming as much of it in as he can. When he sees the name "Jim Gordon," he stops scrolling and reads carefully.<p>

Somebody's taking kids off the street, and the grim-eyed cop is the only one between them and—Bruce doesn't know what, but something terrible. He's never met a street kid.

But there's something ok about a guy who takes care of kids, even when he comes over to the house and fixes the boy with an "over it" stare. Bruce wonders for a moment what it would be like to have Jim Gordon as a full-time guardian. Somehow, he guesses he wouldn't be staying up until 3 a.m. listening to a police scanner every night.

He wants to help, like he imagines his father would have done. Thomas would have written a check so big it would have helped every one of those displaced kids.

Jim Gordon says no, but it's not an angry no. There's something like compassion in his grave blue eyes. Alfred usually treats the boy like an adult, if an unpredictable one, but Bruce sees himself reflected in Jim Gordon's eyes, and he knows without a doubt that the cop sees him as a little boy. There's something simultaneously unsettling and comforting about that.

Compromise. Compromise is a check that buys new clothes for every one of those kids and a thank you from Gordon that says he approves, even as he fixes Bruce with another one of those stares that makes the boy feel like those grim eyes can see into his soul.

'Those children need someone who cares for them. Like you have, right here. Money can't buy that."

Those words go around and around in Bruce's mind after Gordon is gone, and that night, he doesn't try to conquer the roof again. He eats his dinner. And when Alfred tells him to go to bed, he actually does. His reward is the half smile on his tired butler's face and the older man's hand absently ruffling his hair. He used to mind that. He doesn't any more.


	13. Help

**Help**

Alfred hasn't seen a good cop in years, and Thomas Wayne wasn't a naïve man. "In Gotham," he'd always say to his butler, "it's all about knowing where you stand. We're way beyond trusting people."

But the night of the murders, for a single moment, the butler looks into the face of James Gordon. He sees a young man on his first homicide case, older than his years, but somehow still without the shifty-eyed taint of the Gotham system on him.

The curious thing is how much Bruce respects him. The boy has never been one to give affection or trust easily. Alfred sometimes wonders where even he stands with Bruce, especially as the days pass. He's a legal guardian, but he's also a butler.

When he sees the boy hurt and confused, Alfred is reminded that he's caring for a child. But when that same child refuses dinner, again, and climbs the roof for the fourth time, the butler feels like he's dealing with an impossible little adult.

That's why he goes to see Jim Gordon.

Truth be told, Alfred isn't that surprised when the cop says he thinks Thomas Wayne's insistence on his child's autonomy is a recipe for disaster. The butler, privately, thinks the same thing, most of the time. But his relationship with Bruce contains the complications of years. There's a closeness, too, but sometimes closeness, when it encompasses pain and transition, looks a lot like distance.

"Those children need someone who cares for them. Like you have, right here. Money can't buy that."

Alfred can feel Bruce looking at him out of the corner of his eyes, and he wonders what the boy is thinking. There are some things the butler can't say, and he's beginning to appreciate the absolute directness of mind that compels the young cop to say them instead.

Gordon leaves, and Alfred wonders if calling on him was the right decision. He's not sure anything has changed.

Day turns to night, and Bruce stays in the house. He doesn't lead the butler on a chase to find him in some obscure corner or the edge of the roof. He even eats the dinner Alfred prepares and fully expects to throw out or give away. Out of force of habit, the butler steps into the living room and intones "Bed time, Master Bruce," at the appropriate time, anticipating no acknowledgement or obedience.

To his surprise, his ward gets up with a yawn and a "Good night, Alfred." As Bruce passes him in the doorway, the butler smiles and cards his hand through the little boy's hair.

He definitely doesn't regret asking Jim Gordon for help.


	14. En Garde

**En Garde**

Bruce Wayne doesn't play. Not any more. Not since That Night. Sometimes he draws and listens to music, but he doesn't play.

When his parents were alive, he wrestled. No one in Gotham would have believed the sight of Thomas Wayne with his only son and heir pinned to the Wayne Manor carpet, both of them laughing like maniacs.

He also had action figures. Superman was his favorite. The day of his parents' funeral, he put them away in a box and never looked at them again. He was twelve, and he had no parents. It was high time, he thought to himself, that he put away his toys and became a man.

Now he spends his days looking through files and listening to police reports, trying to find even a single clue. No more kids stuff. Just the real, ugly world of Gotham.

Except, Alfred won't let him grow up. It's Alfred who still turns on cartoons, so that when Bruce wakes up, Daffy Duck is dancing across the tablet computer on the end of his bed. It's Alfred who tries to get him to play soccer on the Wayne Manor lawn. But he only shakes his head and keeps working. Adults have jobs, and Bruce has to be an adult now.

That's why he tries to escape when the butler starts a pretend sword fight. Bruce doesn't pretend any more. But you can't get away when someone's going at you with a cane. Against his will, he's pulled into the fray.

He pushes; Alfred pushes back. Then he sees red, and he finds himself attacking files on his desk. It doesn't make sense to attack files; it makes sense to attack what makes you angry. He can't stop.

"I surrender!"

Alfred's voice silences his anger immediately. Bruce lowers his weapon, takes a deep breath, and smiles. It feels good, somehow, to be angry and then to stop being angry. There's reassurance in knowing the anger doesn't have to control him.

* * *

><p><strong>I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this scene. I really liked it, but beyond that, I thought the progression of Bruce going a little over the edge, coming back, and then looking happier than we've seen him was really significant. <strong>


	15. Intensity

**Intensity**

It's not as if intensity is a new quality in Bruce Wayne. Alfred has always seen it, and when the boy's parents were alive, he was thankful that they knew how to bring their child's lighter side to the surface. He used to stand outside the living room and watch Thomas Wayne wrestle his son to the ground, tickling him until Bruce's laughter echoed through the walls of the Manor. Martha, too, had had her way, though it was calmer. She could always, somehow, silence Bruce's propensity toward fear and anger with a touch or a word.

It has never been his responsibility to soothe the boy when his own mind threatens to get the better of him. Until now, when the darkness is darker than ever before.

Alfred thinks of his own childhood, but he was not like Bruce Wayne. He was never lost in his own mind, and he never wore the faraway look that claims the boy's face more and more often.

Children, he thinks, are meant to have fun, even if their lives have been turned upside down. It's unhealthy for his charge to move between his intense obsession with the files and the news reports and his determination to punish himself in the name of conquering fear.

Sometimes, Alfred dreams that he hears Bruce laughing, but he wakes to a silent house and a boy who, more often than not, is huddled in a low-lighted room looking at bloody photos on his computer.

That's why, one day, he picks up a cane and starts the silliest sword fight in history. Alfred may be duty bound to let Bruce have his way in some things, but fun is nonnegotiable. He pushes; Bruce pushes back.

That's when something shifts, and the little boy isn't playing any more. Alfred sees the intensity, the anger, the flash of something deep and painful.

"I surrender!"

To his surprise, the words shut down Bruce's anger like a lightswitch, and just like the sun after rain, a grin fills the little boy's face.

Alfred studies the child who has become his student, his ward, his accidental son. And he finally understands. Intensity is only frightening when you can't control it. When you find out that it's possible to be angry and to stop being angry, that's when you feel brave.

Seeing Bruce Wayne smile doesn't just make Alfred feel brave; it makes him feel like he can hold the world on his shoulders.


	16. Nightmares

**Nightmares**

"I had a bad dream."

"Was I in it?"

"Not this time."

Bruce smiles. It's not normal to smile after a nightmare. In the first days, he couldn't. He would lie alone in his bed and sob into his pillow, trying not to wake Alfred. His pain, he had felt, was his to bear, and no one else's.

But something changed, after that. Somewhere between quiet battles of will over food and files, sword fights, and hugs, he's begun to realize he's not alone.

His butler is no Martha Wayne, with her gentle hands and the sweet smell of perfume that always lingered around her. He's no Thomas Wayne, with his big laugh and endless patience. He's Alfred, with worry-lines etched in his face that Bruce has begun to realize are growing deeper because of him.

There's a hole in the boy's soul, but he's started to understand what most people aren't forced to realize until they're much older: Losing people, even those you love most, doesn't have to mean isolation.

Bruce's father once told him about people whose heart valves get blocked, but somehow, because of exercise and the amazing things the body does, their hearts manage to make new pathways, keeping them alive far longer than should be possible.

His heart feels that way, sometimes. Where there used to be pathways to love, security, and comfort, he now finds only anger and pain and loss. But there are new pathways, too, forged by the knowledge that no matter how much Alfred threatens, he will never fail to make him a meal, by the security of never having to face lawyers or cops without a protector, and most of all, by finding that he's never truly alone, either in body or mind, because the butler shares both his house and his pain.

It's not that Alfred knows how to make the nightmares go away, but knowing he cares enough to try?-that's enough to make Bruce smile.


	17. Smiles

**Smiles**

Most days, Bruce Wayne doesn't smile.

Alfred used to live to serve, to make sure everything in Wayne Manor ran so smoothly that Thomas and Martha never even had to give a second thought to the day-to-day workings of their home lives.

It's not that he's stopped caring about that, but since that ugly night, something else has become more important. _Someone _else.

When Bruce falls asleep on the sofa at midnight, Alfred is the one who gently shuts the lid of his laptop and closes all the files strewn around him on the floor. It's the butler who picks him up and carries him to bed, or, if he's too far gone, puts an afghan around him and leaves a low light on in case he should wake in the night.

It's Alfred who hears the screams. Usually, they come at about 2 a.m. That's when he gets up, puts on his robe, rubs his bleary eyes, and goes to the kitchen to make hot cocoa. The boy never talks about his nightmares, and he doesn't want to be touched or coddled. At those moments, he shuts into himself even more than usual. But night after night, he takes the mugs and sips the warm liquid inside, and as the butler watches, he calms down and settles back into bed. It's not perfect, but it's something.

He's not used to hearing screams in the daytime. That's why he rushes to Bruce's favorite room in the house. He's actually relieved when he realizes the boy was dreaming. Given the child's propensity for self-harm, he wouldn't have been surprised by much. But when he sees Bruce upright and unharmed, his heart rate starts to return to normal.

_Bad dream_. Of course it was a bad dream. Alfred would do anything he could to take those bad dreams in his hands and rip them to shreds, like someone tearing apart the picture of a lost lover. But no one can do that.

"Was I in it?"

"Not this time."

The boy smiles. It's like opening a Christmas Cracker and finding the best prize in the world.

Alfred used to live for schedules and tasks and duties done like clockwork, but Bruce Wayne is more complicated than the insides of the most complicated clock in the world.

Most days, he doesn't smile. Alfred lives for the days he does.


	18. The Protector

**The Protector**

_Alfred doesn't understand_ Bruce tells himself, as he pins another article to the wall. It's not that he doesn't hear everything the butler says to him; he likes to look as if he doesn't.

It's a defense mechanism. Alfred isn't Thomas or Martha Wayne, and the boy is trying to become acclimated to a world in which he no longer has anyone.

But it's complicated, because he doesn't want to be alone. Part of him is glad when his butler checks on him, scolds him, tries to pry. It's a human weakness, he feels, to rely on someone else, but he can't help it. Alfred isn't Thomas or Martha Wayne, but he's the one person who still cares.

Entering the Wayne Enterprises luncheon should be frightening, a little boy making his way through a sea of rich, successful adults, but it isn't, because Bruce isn't alone. He feels his butler's presence behind him—warm, solid, safe. He's not even frightened when the screams start, and everyone is running. Alfred shields him, and he knows he'll be all right. Nothing bad can happen to him when Alfred is near—nothing but a scolding, that is, and he doesn't mind those.

That night, he shows Alfred what he finds in his neverending files, and the butler shows an interest instead of complaining about his choice of hobbies. Bruce is glad he's there. It makes no sense to defend yourself against your very own protector.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Short and sweet, but the next one is longer ;)**


	19. The Protected

Dedicated to wandamarie. Thanks for being a great reader!

**The Protected**

Alfred is frustrated, not that it's surprising. He spends most of his days with frustration of some sort. The young master wouldn't eat; then he wouldn't sleep; then he moved on to hurting himself in the name of "testing," but to Alfred, it all felt like self-punishment for a senseless act that had nothing to do with the little boy and everything to do with the deterioration of Gotham. Now it's the endless files, with their gruesome photos and whitewashed information that has undoubtedly passed through hand after hand, sanitizing official reports and making the truth into lies.

If he wasn't so attached to the boy, it would be easier. But there's no chance of that, not after years of living in the same house, changing diapers, giving rides to school. He's never had children of his own, but Bruce is entwined with him as tightly as if he belonged to him. And he does, now.

When he finds the child once more so ensconced in his files that he won't even look around, he restrains the impulse to yell; he's already realized that doesn't work on Bruce. He also doesn't touch him. The boy is only twelve, and there are moments when he needs to be touched, but woe betide the unsuspecting butler who miscalculates them. It's not that the boy fights or struggles; it's that he goes somewhere, deep into himself, and Alfred can't find him. That's far scarier than watching the boy calmly studying police reports, so he picks the lesser of evils and leaves the boy alone.

Later on, at a luncheon full of people Alfred despises, he stands proudly behind his young charge. It's not frustrating, for once, because he's doing his real job. His title is butler; his vocation is protector. When the crisis happens—how could there not be a crisis; it's Gotham, after all—he shields Bruce on instinct. He does not want to die. Not for himself; he faced death hundreds of times when he was a young Marine. But he doesn't want to leave Bruce alone. As much as the boy outwardly resists his influence, he knows how much the child desperately needs him. But if death awaits, he will save the boy with his last breath. No question.

At the end of the day, they're both alive and unharmed. Alfred drives back to Wayne Manor, but he can't resist looking in the mirror to the back seat, reminding himself that the boy is in one piece, sitting with as much quiet composure as ever while he reads something on cellular phone.

Woe betide the butler who miscalculates what Bruce Wayne needs, but when he opens the door for the child to let him out of the car, he risks a quick embrace. He can't help it. To his relief, it's returned, with interest. "Thank you, Alfred," says the boy, pulling back and walking to the house without looking back.

That night, the butler sits with his charge. He wouldn't admit it to a soul, but he can't bear not being with him, reassuring himself over and over that the child is whole and safe after the scare of the day. Bruce hands him something, a sheet of paper from one of his files. It's a flag of truce, perhaps, or even an invitation. The boy has finally found something, and he wants Alfred to be part of his discovery. That's even better than a hug.


	20. Detached

**Detached**

Bruce feels the eyes of his butler on his back, watching him as he pins another article to the wall. It's not an unfriendly gaze, but it feels threatening nonetheless.

It's not a physical threat; Alfred would die before he would hurt him, of that he's absolutely sure. And he would die to protect him.

But some threats are worse than physical. Burns are only skin deep, and cuts heal. He can't turn and meet Alfred's eyes because they contain an invitation he can't let himself accept.

Attachment is deeper than skin. It fuses brain and bone and heart, until the ripping apart is so painful it kills you inside, even while you're still walking around living. Bruce feels like everything inside him, everything that can't be seen, is irreparably broken, the jagged edges of a whole that once existed, the fusion of three people who bore the same name and blood and love.

He cannot let himself accept the butler's ever-extended invitation to attach, to fuse, to become something new together. To attach is to risk another breaking.

He knows what would happen if he broke again. His heart would crumble, like the doomed victims of Gotham's failed drug, collapsing on themselves like houses of cards. He cannot bear the thought.

To be alone is a slow death, but he deceives himself into believing that a slow death is better than the risk of losing again.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Most chapters follow episodes directly, but after seeing a clip from "Spirit of the Goat," I wanted to write a couple of short chapters that bridge the gap from "Viper" to that episode. **


	21. Unfinished

**Unfinished**

Alfred presses the boy's clothes: khaki trousers, blue button-down, beige cabled sweater. The costume of a fully-grown man. But only a costume, because every piece is so unbelievably small, so slight under the iron, like a half-formed idea or an unfinished poem.

The butler shakes his head. He's not usually one for metaphors, except the boy himself is a metaphor these days, walking around the Manor like a half-finished symphony, jagged and discordant.

Alfred has always liked music, and the Waynes were like the harmony that made the minor-key reality of Gotham bearable. A man, a woman, a child—perfectly in unison. He didn't count himself part of their song, but he enjoyed listening to it.

He knows something of what the boy feels; his own parents are dead. But he was fully-formed when they died, not a half-finished thought with black hair and haunted brown eyes. He does not know what it's like to be incomplete and to lose what it is that promises to complete you—the people whose touch ensures that you will one day be a whole self.

Alfred has never been a father. He has never known what it is to bring someone into the world, unformed, with the responsibility of making what is unfinished into something complete. But he recognizes the boy's need when he sees it, the ache of a heart that is alone when it most needs connection to thrive.

The butler has always seen what needed to be done and done it, without a hesitation. That's why, day in and day out, he holds out an invitation to Bruce Wayne: to grab on, to cling, to accept the promise of guidance and to begin, together, the journey toward completeness.

Bruce averts his eyes, preoccupies himself, spends his mind on conspiracies. But every so often, Alfred feels the child's eyes on him, intense and longing, and he knows that, one day, neither of them will be alone any more.


	22. Substitute

**Substitute**

"Why would the Goat take me? There's no one to take me from."

He says it a little too quickly, but there's emotion in the phrase. It's not that he doesn't feel his butler's gaze on him or understand that he has somewhere to belong. It's the anger coming out, anger at a world that has stolen the people from him to whom he _wants _to belong.

He and Alfred live around each other, day in and day out, and Bruce is well aware that his butler wants more from him—more respect, more compliance, more permission to be part of his private world. But the boy can't bear to give it—any of it—because it would feel like a betrayal of Thomas and Martha Wayne. He is content to be friends with his butler, but he cannot bridge the gap that separates them—a few feet in a room and a few hundred miles of emotion.

Alfred wants him to sleep in bed; he doesn't. He's stopped climbing the roof, but he would do it again. In the moments before his mind finally shuts off, usually in the early hours of the morning, he feels rage bubbling up inside him. It's directed at different things, but one of them is the idea that someone can be a substitute father, can come in and replace what's missing in an instant. He's not angry at his butler; he's angry at the world that took Thomas Wayne and left Alfred. He wakes resigned.

Of course, it's Alfred who helps him with Algebra and sentence diagramming. It's Alfred who brings him a tray in the mid-afternoon when his stomach grumbles because he's forgotten to eat. And it's Alfred who runs when his nightmares get the better of him.

Bruce Wayne is sure he doesn't belong to anyone. Except—if Alfred was gone, he would lose his mind completely. There's no question about that.


	23. 13 Words

**13 Words**

"Why would the goat take me? There's no one to take me from."

Before Bruce Wayne's birth, Alfred had never realized how much the words of children can hurt those who are older than they are by decades. It seems as if it shouldn't work that way, as if something in the adult mind should guard against the feeling of being punched in the gut by 13 words said by a little boy.

It's not that the butler is hurt for himself—well, there's a bit of that. He wishes Bruce would turn around, look him in the eyes, and see how much he cares for him. But it's far more than that. The words of children are innocently revelatory of the failings of their elders. What sucker punches Alfred Pennyworth the most is the reality that the boy doesn't feel like he belongs, can't seem to see, or at least to accept, that when Alfred makes his tea and irons his shirts, he's trying to stabilize his world. That when he sits with him, looking through files, he's trying to connect, to share love that isn't overwhelming.

Alfred can't help blaming himself. He is no parent, and he's never had to be. But he's begun to understand why people with children have regrets, why they lose sleep wondering about the words they've used and their tones of voice, why their minds are endlessly occupied with a curious mixture of worry and joy.

After all, 13 words can pierce like a knife, but the fact that Alfred is the one who gets to hear them, to be the one to carry at least a portion of the boy's pain—that's where the joy comes in.


	24. Velveteen

**Velveteen**

"'_Does it hurt?__'__ asked the Rabbit._

'_Sometimes,__'__ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. __'__When you are Real you don__'__t mind being hurt.__'_

'_Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,__'__ he asked, __'__or bit by bit?__'_

'_It doesn__'__t happen all at once,__'__ said the Skin Horse. __'__You become. It takes a long time. That__'__s why it doesn__'__t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don__'__t matter at all, because once you are Real you can__'__t be ugly, except to people who don__'__t understand.__'"_

Bruce is reading _The Velveteen Rabbit_. He hasn't read it in at least five years, but it was his mother's favorite book to read to him when he was a small boy, and so it had once been his favorite, too. "What does it mean?" he'd asked Martha, when he was old enough to realize that he didn't understand what the Skin Horse was talking about.

"Love," his mother had answered simply. He still hadn't understood, but he'd liked the way she'd said it, so he'd wrapped his tiny arms around her neck and curled up in her lap.

When he was a small boy, the book had never made him cry. Now, at twelve, he has to brush tears off the pages. He wants, more than anything, to talk to Martha again. He understands, now, what it means to love so hard you fall to pieces. What he still can't comprehend is how it's possible to love so much the pain is bearable.

He lets himself cry for a few minutes, closing the pages of the worn children's book and laying it on the sofa beside him before leaning back and closing his eyes. While he goes to sleep, he usually imagines his father's voice, reading him the _Morte d__'__Arthur _and stopping to explain the stories about the Knights of the Round Table.

This night, his memory belongs to his mother, and he imagines himself telling her what he never knew how to say. If being Real is about love, then she was the realest person he'd ever known.


	25. Becoming Real

**Becoming Real**

Alfred goes to Bruce's favorite room to check on the boy, and as usual, he finds him fully clothed and asleep on the sofa. The butler wants to be irritated, but he can't. He's just glad the boy is resting. He takes a throw blanket and puts it gently over the small, inert form, and as he does so, he sees the corner of a book next to Bruce's arm. Slowly and quietly, he picks it up.

It's _The Velveteen Rabbit._ Alfred can't remember the last time he read it, but he can guess what fascination it holds for his young charge. He well remembers hearing Martha Wayne read it to her son over and over.

He sits down opposite Bruce for a few minutes, watching the boy to make sure he doesn't wake with a nightmare. As he waits, he begins to flip through the book idly, remembering it from his own childhood, long past.

_Does it hurt?__'__ asked the Rabbit._

'_Sometimes,__'__ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. __'__When you are Real you don__'__t mind being hurt.__'_

'_Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,__'__ he asked, __'__or bit by bit?__'_

'_It doesn__'__t happen all at once,__'__ said the Skin Horse. __'__You become. It takes a long time. That__'__s why it doesn__'__t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don__'__t matter at all, because once you are Real you can__'__t be ugly, except to people who don__'__t understand.__'"_

The butler remembers being enchanted by the passage, as a boy, but not knowing quite what it meant. Now, a feeling pierces him that is so sharp it has no business coming from a children's book. He shuts the slim volume and watches Bruce Wayne, and tears spring to his eyes.

He knows, now, what it means to be Real.

He knows what it is to have his dignity loved off, by a little boy who used to love to tackle him, jumping on his back until he feigned defeat. He knows how it feels to have all other purposes fall out of him, until all that's left is the desire to care for Bruce. And he knows what it is to feel loose in the joints and shabby in the heart.

"When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

That's the truth of it. That's what has him wiping his eyes with the back of his hand as he marks the slow, steady breathing of the little boy. It doesn't matter what Bruce says; he will love him. There is absolutely nothing, any more, that the child could do that he would not forgive.

Bruce doesn't understand. Not yet. There is still ugliness in his eyes. But, as Alfred rises and adjusts the afghan around the boy one more time, he smiles, because it doesn't matter at all. By loving Bruce Wayne, he's become Real.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: This chapter is a tribute to Margery Williams, who ****wrote _The Velveteen Rabbit_, which is, in my opinion, one of the most profound books ever written.**


	26. The Boy

**The Boy**

The boy who wants to be a man is dressed in pajamas and a robe. Gordon has never seen a kid who dresses so well, like something off that _Sherlock _show Barbara loves.

He has a man's intuition. He will read in your eyes what you don't say, and Gordon has never been good at hiding the truth from his eyes. Bruce knows he might be going to his death, though the cop would do anything to conceal that truth.

He's too honest. He's never been able to lie well. If he had been, he'd be making a lot more money in a lot nicer city than Gotham. But he can't lie to himself any more than he can lie to the boy.

He puts his hand out. It's an apology and a goodbye. Bruce wants to be treated like a man; Gordon offers a man's handshake.

But the cop has his own kind of intuition, and he sees the child in those eyes that so desperately want to have the strength of a man. Bruce doesn't yet realize that men are just boys who grow taller.

The handshake is refused. The boy is child enough to prefer an embrace. Or maybe he's man enough. Gordon isn't sure, because he's blinking back tears. The only person who embraces him is Barbara, and lately, her hugs have included a desperation that frightens him.

The boy's arms simply say, "Please don't go; please don't be another loss. But if you go, be brave." He's surprised by the strength in the child's arms. He will be a formidable man some day.

When he finally turns to leave, the last picture in Gordon's vision is that of the dutiful butler, standing behind the boy as he always does, solid and unmoving. He nods. The butler nods back.

The cop doesn't want to die, but he's comforted by the knowledge that Bruce will never be alone. He's too much of a child to be left alone and too much of a man to have less of a father than Alfred Pennyworth. They're strangely suited to each other, those two.

If he never returns to Wayne Manor, the arms of the boy will have something to hold. That thought warms him as he steps out into the cold.


	27. The Butler

**The Butler**

Butlers are not known for their ability to take out Major Crimes Unit detectives. Then again, Alfred Pennyworth isn't much like any butler in the movies James Gordon has seen. Oh, all the surface things are there; he's perfectly correct.

But there's more. A lot more. James Gordon was a soldier, and he knows one when he sees one. Fish Mooney once told him he had danger in him; he feels the same way about Pennyworth.

He finds it comforting. It means that no matter what happens to him, the boy with the haunted eyes and strangely adult way of speaking will be safe. And cared for.

Where there's danger, there's also love. James Gordon knows because he's always cared too easily, and he can see that same care in the eyes of the butler. Alfred Pennyworth is no ordinary domestic servant. He's a father in disguise, waiting for his son to realize how lucky he is, to turn around and embrace what's been given to him.

Instead, the boy chooses to embrace the cop, and Gordon holds him close, wishing he could give the affection back to Pennyworth, to whom it's due, and in turn to fill the boy's arms with the person who's never going to leave him.

But he can't, so he shares a nod of understanding with Pennyworth and comforts himself with the knowledge that the butler will still be there when the boy finally understands.


	28. Attachments

**Attachments**

Bruce does not want to lose James Gordon, and he doesn't quite know why. Somehow, the cop is fused with his memory of the Terrible Night, the one that will never leave his mind. He remembers the blond man with his bright blue eyes telling him that he would see light again, and he almost believed it. For a moment, James Gordon had been the only thing between him and despair.

He's always been intense in his attachments. It's something he doesn't particularly like about himself. For a few years, he's tried to hide how much he loves the people he loves, and since his parents' death, that desire has crystallized into a mission. Perhaps, he thinks, if he can convince the world he's detached, removed, and cold, he will convince himself.

But Gordon won't let him. Something about the man pulls out the child in Bruce, the boy who still wants to yell instead of acquiescing, to argue instead of accepting, to be held instead of shaking a hand. He cannot bear the idea of James Gordon dying. It would rip another hole in his shredded heart.

What he doesn't let himself think about is the one attachment that goes deeper. He cannot turn and look at his butler's face. He knows that it would wear an expression that is a mixture of concern and love, behind a mask of impassivity. It sometimes feels like a curse to be able to read Alfred's expressions as easily as he can.

He does not want to lose James Gordon, but he would die, he's pretty sure, if he lost Alfred. It doesn't bear thinking about, so he closes it off once again.


	29. The Mission

**The Mission**

Alfred offers his help. It's all he can do for the young cop hellbent on justice. He knows his offer won't be accepted. He has seen many soldiers with the look in their eyes that Gordon has now, soldiers going on missions from which they will likely not return.

He doesn't want to lose the young man, one of the only good men in a city of thieves. But James Gordon is not his mission.

His life belongs to the boy whose very desperation to be a man shows what a child he still is. He knows the feeling of Bruce's embrace, though he feels it rarely now. There is a closeness between them so painful it brings its own kind of distance.

It's good for the boy to be held, to feel that he's real and cared for in the arms of another person. Alfred would be those arms, but the boy is afraid of him.

No, he's not afraid of the man's anger, or his displeasure, or his stiffness. They are far beyond that now. He's afraid of his own inability to escape loving and being loved. To touch the butler now is worse pain than burning his hand on a candle, because it forces him to realize that he cannot stop caring. Alfred has sensed this, and now he knows it. The vehemence of the boy's embrace of the cop doesn't only belong to James Gordon; it also belongs to him.

There are days when the butler doesn't enjoy his job, days when he wishes Bruce could be three years old again, when he could cure the child's moods with toast and a few minutes in his lap. But he would never think of abandoning his post. When you love something as much as he loves the boy, no pain is too severe.

James Gordon nods to him before he leaves the house, and Alfred knows they understand each other. They are both men who know what it is to have a mission that cannot afford to fail.


	30. Data

**Data**

Bruce Wayne loves data. He knows a million reasons homeschooling works (carefully failing to mention to Alfred that most successful homeschoolers get together with other children on a regular basis—irrelevant, surely). He can also use data to decimate any argument for why it's a good idea to be a normal kid. His brain is wired for data. He reads, and he remembers.

He has known Alfred Pennyworth for twelve years, all twelve of the years he's been on earth. Plenty of time to gather all relevant data. He knows what every expression on the butler's face means, and every tone of his voice.

There has been no power struggle since his parents died. Alfred has left Bruce in control, and the boy knows it. Sure, the butler has yelled a few times, strongly suggested therapy or bedtime or dinner. But the boy who has the data knows there was no steel behind the orders.

Until Monday morning, on the steps of Bruce's school. He'd agreed to come, because he'd thought he could talk Alfred out of leaving him. He'd always been able to get his way before.

Not this time. This time, he tries to argue his way out, and Alfred's tone changes. For the first time since he's been alone with his butler, the boy knows the man means what he says. Bruce could run, or refuse, or do something else to get out of it. But he doesn't want to. There's something curiously satisfying about trying to push and meeting a steel wall.

The boy's world has been in flux for a long time. Alfred is not his father or his mother. But he's far more than a butler. As much as Bruce wants to be a man, something in him is dead tired of being in charge.

The boy has data on himself, too. Data on anger that won't go away, fear that dogs him at night, flashbacks he can't turn off. It's enough to try to survive, to use his obsession with research to quench a little bit of the fire. Something deep in him knows that it's too much to call the shots, too.

So he turns and walks toward the door of a school he doesn't want to go to, full of kids he doesn't care to see. But as he holds his leather briefcase close, he feels curiously shielded, as if he's wearing a fur-lined overcoat over his jacket.

There's a new piece of data that he's learning by the day: It's all right to let someone else be in charge, as long as it's someone you can trust.

* * *

><p>AN: It's probably going to take a few chapters to unpack everything in "The Mask," which was an outstanding episode in general, but also gave us phenomenal Alfred/Bruce moments.


	31. Orders

**Orders**

Alfred looks in his bathroom mirror and imagines that he's in the middle of the desert, commanding a platoon of Marines. The key, his commanding officer had always said, was not to show any kind of uncertainty. "Lock eyes with 'em, Pennyworth," he'd bark. "If you look like you're sure they'll obey you, they will. Certainty. It's all about certainty."

He'd been a young man then, but it had worked.

Now he was old man, or, at least, he often felt like one. And he was well aware that guiding one little boy could be far more complicated than commanding a whole platoon of Marines.

He's surprised by how little Bruce resists getting into the car and driving across town. It's unsettling. He'd expected a showdown, some kind of battle of wills. Deep down, he's known they'd have to come to one some time. For all his promising to let Bruce go his own way, he's come to realize that twelve-year-old boys don't make the best parents for themselves. And he has a sneaking suspicion Bruce doesn't think so either, for all his unwillingness to show it. They've been living around each other for too long. He does not know how to be a father, but at least he knows how to be an adult, something the boy is still a few years from learning.

He'd rather not pitch battle on the steps of Gotham's finest preparatory school. But that doesn't mean he won't.

Bruce is stalling. Alfred hasn't been his butler for twelve years for nothing. He knows what fear looks like on the little boy. Since the night of the murders, he's let the kid win these kinds of fights, not deeming it worth time and effort to set a flag down on a territory that doesn't really matter. But this matters. Behind his resolve is the assurance that Thomas and Martha Wayne would want their son in school, back in the world, learning to live with the people he'll someday have to lead.

"Certainty. It's all about certainty."

He locks eyes with his charge, trying to project all the confidence he can find in himself. "You're going to bloody school. Start walking." He has a split second of terror that he forces himself not to show. Truthfully, he doesn't know what he's going to do if Bruce refuses.

The boy starts toward the door, and the butler allows himself a relieved sigh. He's still got it. At least, he's got it when it comes to Bruce Wayne.

Alfred is not a father, but he can't help feeling a feeling that is very different from anything he'd ever felt when a group of privates had done his bidding. There's something like comfort in knowing that the boy trusts him enough—perhaps not perfectly—but enough to do as he says.

He showed no uncertainty to Bruce Wayne. He lets himself show it now. When you're a soldier, you take and give orders the way you breathe air. It's neither your call nor your responsibility to decide what those orders are. When you're a guardian, though, it's different. The feeling of being absolutely responsible for someone else's well-being makes every order the most important thing in the world. He hopes to goodness he's made the right choice for the boy.


	32. Logic

**Logic**

Bruce Wayne received a logic book from his father for his eighth birthday. It was his favorite gift. Day after day, he would pore over the puzzles inside it until he could solve every single one. A couple of years later, his mother followed up with a book about formal logic. He didn't understand a lot of it, but he was fascinated by the sheer beauty he saw in the symbols and the forms. Logic spoke the language inside the boy. It was orderly, perfect, safe. As he grew, Bruce began to learn that Gotham was not a logical place. The night his parents died was the most absurd of his life. It had no place in his orderly world.

The day the boy returns to school, he learns that bullies cannot be handled with logic. At first, it's not just anger he feels. It's confusion. Logic makes sense; Tommy Elliot does not make sense. There is nothing logical about unkindness. He makes the mistake of revealing that he doesn't understand. He is met with sneers.

It's not being hit that he minds. Physical pain is not terribly important when you feel like a disembodied mind. It's the stupidity of it all, the vicious savagery of senseless cruelty. The world is supposed to make sense. Bullying is a logical fallacy come to life.

He cannot think of a solution, and he does not want to tell his butler. He does not like to appear weak.

But Alfred doesn't make sense either. He is the one presence in Bruce's world that will never budge, not when he's ignored, set aside, distrusted, or disobeyed. It would be logical, Bruce thinks, for Alfred to leave him to his own devices, to work out his own problems. He's given the man enough grief to make that reasonable.

But the butler makes no more logical sense than the bully. He holds Bruce's lapel, and the boy sees fire—protective fire—in his eyes. There is nothing like dismissal or uncaring on his face. It's almost as if—as if the bullies had hit him instead of Bruce.

The boy does not understand Alfred any better than he understands Tommy Elliot, but as he takes his seat in the back of the car and calms his breathing and his heart rate, a thought occurs to him: If there are bullies in the world, it's a good thing there are Alfred Pennyworths in the world, too. It's not a logical thought, but it nearly makes him smile in spite of everything.

* * *

><p>AN: Hi there, personal experience. I was bullied horrendously at Bruce's age. I remember a particular incident in which I did something very similar to what Bruce did in the scene with Tommy—I tried to use verbal reasoning to deal with preteen bullies. You can imagine how well that went. I feel you, Babybat. Sadly (or perhaps fortunately, depending on your perspective) I had no Alfred in my life, and the unresolved anger I felt lasted for many years and led to a lot of nastiness. Let's just say, I get it.


	33. Fire

**Fire**

Alfred Pennyworth does not like bullies.

He especially does not like them when they touch even a hair on the head of the person he loves most in the world.

There are moral quandaries, and there are moral certainties. The butler takes Thomas Wayne's Rolex out of the Wayne Manor safe. The boy should have it anyway. All the better for it to be put to good use.

He would fight for his charge, but it will be better for him to have the satisfaction of defending his own family's honor. Nevertheless, Alfred will watch. He will not let Bruce be harmed. But he isn't worried. There is fire in the boy.

His question, "Not at all?" was a pointed one. Not for one moment does he believe Bruce failed to hurt Tommy Elliot in their first encounter. The boy needs practice and direction, but he's far from helpless. The intensity that has frustrated the butler in recent days is a gift, Alfred finally realizes.

He has often wondered how to bond with Bruce Wayne, how to gain new access to the boy's soul. Sometimes, he's felt so different from the child it has seemed as if they're from different planets.

Not any more. There is anger in the boy's eyes that Alfred fully comprehends. They are not so different after all.


	34. Resolve

**Resolve**

Bruce Wayne clutches a Rolex watch. The cold metal reminds him of all the times, when he was small, that he would sit on Thomas Wayne's knee while his father's low voice told him stories about Sir Gawain and The Goose Girl and the Brave Tailor. Thomas's arm around his middle had always seemed immense, stronger than anything in the world. Bruce concentrated better when he had something in his hands, so his father would always take off his large silver watch and let the little boy fiddle with it while he lulled him into drowsiness.

This day, he focuses on the feeling of that huge arm around him, solid and safe. He wishes he could feel it now, could bury himself in his father's protection. But today is his day, his time to avenge his family's honor. He closes his eyes and clamps his fingers around the watch, imagining his fist connecting with Tommy Elliot's face.

He is not afraid; he is resolute. There's something comforting about that. He has tried to conquer fear, but when it comes to the bully, fear is nowhere to be found. There is only resolve.

He rings the doorbell, and his mind shifts into pure instinct. The feeling of smashing knuckles against cheek is even more satisfying than he expected. He repeats the motion again, and then again. Power surges through him like a drug.

"Master Bruce!" Just as Alfred's voice calmed his anger during their sword fight in Wayne Manor, it shuts down his rage now. He steps back, but the butler's face is not disapproving.

"I let him try." Those four words are the best thing Bruce Wayne has heard for a long time. Approval and authority. Authority and approval. A hand held out to keep him safe. The butler will not let him fall into the black abyss of his rage, the frightening place inside him that he's sometimes terrified will swallow him whole.

"Thank you, Alfred," says the boy as he passes his butler to get into the backseat of the car. The older man puts two large hands on his shoulders, squeezing lightly.

"You're welcome, Master Bruce." It's not like being held by Thomas Wayne, but it's comforting nonetheless. Bruce clamps the watch around his wrist. It's too large, but he'll grow into it.


	35. Singular

**Singular**

Alfred is proud.

When you're a butler, you can be proud in an indirect way. There's a long-standing tradition of English butlers taking ownership of "their" families. But it's not the same as being _part _of the family. He's always taken pride in Bruce's accomplishments—the school projects well done, the meticulously-completed logic puzzles he leaves lying around, the flashes of unusual maturity he displays. But it was Thomas and Martha Wayne who were responsible for shaping and guiding the boy, and most of the pride rightfully belonged to them.

It's different now. As he walks side-by-side with his ward, back to the waiting car, he feels a surge of pride that belongs to him alone. Of course, Bruce will always bear the DNA of his parents in both body and soul, but his present belongs to Alfred.

They are singular together, the hard-edged weapon of a butler with a flinty exterior that conceals a gentle soul he shows to few, and the delicately-featured, thoughtful boy with his deep wells of anger and determination.

Alfred would never have desired the responsibility he now has, and he would never have wished the boy such pain. Nevertheless, as the days have passed, he has come to understand his place. He is no longer a butler standing in the offing while the life of the Waynes unfolds around him. He cannot afford to stand aloof. Bruce needs him too much. And—if he's honest with himself, he loves the boy too much.

The butler had thought he could not love Bruce Wayne more. He now knows what all parents know—that when it comes to children, love is an infinite thing, piling on itself and increasing exponentially by the day until you drown in its depths, never to recover.

He puts his hands on the boy's shoulders and feels him relax. He is proud of the courage that carried his ward to Tommy Elliot's door, and he is proud of the resolve that connected fist with face. But that pride is nothing to the satisfaction he feels at the realization that his words can calm Bruce Wayne's rage and that his hands can soothe his agitation.

They are a pair of singulars, the boy and the man. He teaches the boy to live; the boy teaches him to love. Alfred feels like the lucky one.


	36. Alfred

**Alfred**

Bruce sits in the Wayne Manor kitchen with his sleeves rolled up, a Jerry's Pizza box in front of him on the table. He scarfs his third piece of Pepperoni and Olive, feeling calmer than he has in a long time.

When his parents were alive, he ate every meal with them in the dining room. Now that he and Alfred are alone, the butler brings him a tray wherever he is, and when he comes to the dining wing, they eat together in the kitchen.

"Give yourself time to chew, Master Bruce," says Alfred, who sits across from him at the small kitchen table, smiling.

"Thank you for your help today, Alfred," says Bruce quickly, feeling like he hasn't adequately expressed his gratitude. His parents were big on gratitude.

He looks up from his pizza and catches the butler's eye. Alfred nods and holds his gaze for a moment. He knows then that the older man understands. That's the nice thing about Alfred Pennyworth. He always knows what things mean—what Bruce means—without the boy having to say the things he can't seem to express. He knows when argumentativeness really means fear, when working into the night masks the dread of inescapable nightmares, and when shutting himself off really means he wants desperately to connect.

That's why the boy can say a simple thank you and know that his butler understand that it covers more than an afternoon at Tommy Elliot's house. He is only twelve, but he knows he's taken Alfred for granted. Somewhere between the butler studying his bruised face and their arrival back at the Manor, the truth had hit him with more impact than the bullies' fists.

_Why did he stay with me? _the boy had wondered, and as usual, his brain had begun its logical march toward a conclusion. Alfred wouldn't have had to stay. He was an employee of Thomas and Martha Wayne. He could have packed his black leather traveling cases and gone back to England or gotten another job with a wealthy family. He could have left Bruce behind, and no one would have blamed him.

The boy had sat in the back of the car and felt the full weight of his butler's sacrifice dawn on him like a thunderclap. He'd refused meals, scared the man the death by hurting himself in every conceivable way, and refused to cooperate with anything he'd suggested. Bruce Wayne was not stupid. The moment he'd seen Alfred's side of things, he'd felt guilt to almost rival the guilt he felt over the night of his parents' murder.

But Bruce's mind didn't hold memories for nothing. Other mental pictures came into sharp relief, the memory of strong arms holding him in the middle of a Gotham alleyway, of being half-awake and feeling the comfort of a thick down comforter wrapped gently around his sleeping form, of burning himself and and then feeling his fear evaporate in Alfred's arms.

It was obvious, he'd finally realized, why Alfred had stayed, and the realization was almost overwhelming to his still-raw emotions. Only someone who—who felt the way Alfred did would have cared so much about the bruise on his chin and taken him to Tommy Elliot's house. Only someone who—loved him that much would have driven him home to Wayne Manor and never even thought of leaving.

"Are you all right, Master Bruce?"Alfred's voice pulls him from the memory of his afternoon realization, and he looks down and sees that he's holding a slice of pizza in midair without eating it.

"I'm fine," he answers, this time catching his butler's eye on purpose and smiling. He doesn't have to say anything else. Alfred understands. That's what makes him Alfred.


	37. Bruce

**Bruce**

Alfred can make pizza. In fact, he remembers with pride the night Martha Wayne had made her way to the kitchen just to tell him that his Capicola and Parmesan was the best pizza she'd ever eaten.

But little boys who have just vanquished bullies do not want artisanal works of flatbread art. They want hot, over-cheesed, commercially-prepared slices of Pepperoni sludge. Alfred is no idiot. He happily drives to Jerry's Pizza and picks up two boxes of the overpriced stuff, no doubt prepared by half-asleep teenagers in unsanitary conditions.

"Thank you, Alfred," says the boy, when he sees where they're headed.

"You're welcome, Master Bruce," Alfred answers, mentally tallying that this is the second thank you he's received in one day. A bit strange for his quiet charge. Nothing is every straightforward with the boy. It's always about reading the signals and trying to understand what they mean. Not that he's bad at it, after twelve years. He just has to concentrate.

"Thank you, Alfred." Number three is when he hands his ward a plate and a paper towel and opens a box of steaming Pepperoni and Olive in front of him. A less experienced man might think the boy was just grateful for the pizza, but Alfred is very, very experienced when it comes to Bruce Wayne.

"You're welcome, Master Bruce." It won't do to betray his suspicions that something else is lurking below the surface. That would just send the boy scurrying back into his shell like a startled turtle.

Bruce is silent for a while after that, eating pizza like it's the last chance he'll ever have. The butler doesn't blame him. He knows how it feels to come down from a well-won fight—the adrenaline slowly fades, leaving calm satisfaction and a drained feeling in its wake that is best treated with superfluous amounts of carbohydrates and protein.

"Give yourself time to chew, Master Bruce." He just wants to engage the boy, to try a little bit of gentle prodding to see if he can get to what's behind the mask.

"Thank you for your help today, Alfred." Finally, Bruce looks up, and Alfred takes the opportunity to lock eyes with him and read his expression. Thanks number four, and he gets it. The words say gratitude, but the eyes hold an apology. It wouldn't be like Bruce Wayne to be simple.

Neither of them are much for talking things out, but the butler understands. Four thank-yous for a hundred different things, four thank-yous that contain just as many sorrys. He looks down and clears his throat. Appreciation is an overwhelming thing to take, especially when it contains the kind of love that Bruce's face can't hide.

That night, Bruce asks a question. "Alfred, can you teach me how to fight?" No one on earth could pay the butler enough to miss that opportunity.

"Yes, Master Bruce, I can."


	38. Lairy

**Lairy**

"But you watch her. She's a lairy one."

Bruce knows what Alfred means. Being around his English butler for twelve years has given him a vocabulary of British slang to rival a central London cabdriver.

Lairy means a lot of things—brash, aggressive, untrustworthy.

But he likes Selina Kyle. He can't help it. She's everything he isn't—confident, sure-footed, streetwise. And pretty.

She's not pretty like the women in the pictures in the Gotham Art Gallery, where his parents used to take him to look at the paintings and sculptures. Those women had calm, dead-looking eyes and pasted-on smiles.

Selina is too alive for that. She says they call her Cat. He thinks it fits. After all, cats are beautiful too, in a cunning, sharp, piercing kind of way.

Selina is like an east wind when you don't have a sweater. At first, its iciness pierces you with what feels like pain, but when you breathe it in and let yourself go, you realize it's made you that much more alive.

It's not that he disagrees with Alfred; she is lairy. But when he's around her, he feels like he's coming back to life.


	39. Louise

**Louise**

Alfred remembers his first crush. She was a girl called Louise, who lived three doors down. She had red hair, freckles, and a limp. He used to punch anyone who was rude to her. He's always been a protector.

It's not until he sees the boy's face when he's looking at the Cat-girl that he understands. He knows that bewilderment, that smile, that utter inability to know what to do or say. Boys, and men, are always rendered at least a little bit helpless in front of women they fancy.

But why does it have to be Selina Kyle, a lairy street waif? Louise had not been lairy.

Except, that's entirely a lie, and Alfred knows it. He remembers well the day she'd incited him to climb over Mrs. Dowland's fence for forbidden apples and the day she'd convinced him to skip school and go with her on an adventure through the seedy alleyways of their city. Both times, he'd been caned. Both times, he'd thought it was worth it.

Men are ordinary, the butler feels, like he is—dutiful, hardworking, solid. Women are mercurial and beautiful. And, when it's the right one, irresistible.

"Know about girls, do you, Alfred?"

He does know, but the boy will have to find out for himself. That's how it is for men. Somehow, girls are born knowing. Perhaps it's because they're lairy.


	40. Girls

**Girls**

It's the thing Bruce dreads most, the idea that someone else knows the thing that eats him up at night and keeps him from sleeping until the nightmares come. No one blames him, but no one else was there, not even Alfred. The butler says it was not his fault, but he did not see Bruce's terror. No one did.

No one except Selina Kyle.

She saw, and that means she knows his shame. That's why she can never care for him, not a strong, fearless, beautiful girl. She would have done something that night. She would not have frozen in fear.

Half of him does not want to talk about that night; the other half cannot bear to be silent. After all, Selina is the only one bound to him in shared experience—the only one other than the man with the gun.

He hesitates, but he finally asks, leaving the question in the air like a missile, waiting for the girl to throw it back at him and leave him bleeding. No amount of burns or cuts can equal the shame he feels.

But when she speaks, it's like someone unlocking a jail cell and letting him go. She saw, but she doesn't blame. He's not sure he can stop blaming himself, but he feels lighter than he has in ages.

When night falls, Selina disappears into her guest room, and Bruce goes to the kitchen for a cup of tea. He finds his butler in shirtsleeves, sitting at the table looking through bills and bank books. "Can I get you something, Master Bruce?" Alfred might balk at cooking for the girl, but he never denies the boy a request.

"No, it's ok. Just tea," says Bruce, going to the cupboard and finding an Earl Grey teabag. "Do you want one?"

The butler gets up, closing his computer and setting aside his paperwork. "Have a seat." He takes the bag from Bruce's hand. The boy does as he says, settling into a kitchen chair and watching as Alfred goes through the routine of heating water and preparing the warm brew. He finds it comforting, like he always has.

"Alfred," he ventures, "I don't understand girls." He hears a low, rumbling laugh in return.

"My Old Son," says the butler, turning around, "you may be a brilliant lad, but some things are so far beyond us humble men that they're not worth worrying about." Bruce takes a steaming teacup from him and smiles.

He may not understand Selina Kyle, but liking her is a completely different thing.


	41. Laughter

**Laughter**

Alfred hears unrestrained laughter.

Since the terrible night, that kind of mirth has existed only in his dreams and his memories. He has forced himself to recall, over and over, the sound of the boy laughing as he danced his mother through the hallways of the house or tried to evade his father's affectionate grasp. Bruce's joy used to be the background to life in Wayne Manor, the soundtrack that made each day worthwhile.

He cannot afford to forget, or he's afraid he'll lose his mind.

It's not that the boy was ever without seriousness. He's always been given to silence and thought and analysis. It's just that, in the past, the darkness had always been balanced by light. Not any more.

The butler stops in his tracks and retraces his steps, wondering if he's imagining things, but when he approaches the sitting room, he's confronted by something he can hardly believe.

Bruce is laughing, playing, acting like a child.

He does not care about the crumbs on the sofa or the table or the jam stains on the rug. He watches and he listens, storing the happiness in his mind so he'll never forget it.

The girl is cheeky and lairy and goes against every rule-loving bone in Alfred's body. But she makes the boy laugh, and that is enough to burn her into the butler's heart forever.


	42. Nighttime

**Nighttime**

Bruce is sitting on the bed in his parents' bedroom. It's the first time he's entered it since the horrible night. He's not sure why he felt like going there. Maybe it's because Selina Kyle is in the house. He hasn't been around a girl for a very long time, and she makes him think of his mother, though she's nothing like Martha Wayne.

Alfred has left the room as it was, and the boy smells his mother's perfume all around him. It's as if she's been there in the past day or the past hour, rather than gone for days and weeks and months. He reaches out his hand, but all he touches is air.

The closet door is cracked open, and Bruce sees his father's suits, standing in rows, as if they're waiting for their owner to return. The boy wants to touch them, but touching would be too much, too real.

He sees the half-light turn to darkness out the windows, and the room is no longer illuminated save by a single lamp by the door. Bruce feels like he's in a dream, as if a wish could bring back the people the room is meant to contain.

The boy leans back onto the brocade coverlet and takes one of his mother's pillows in his arms, holding it against him. He closes his eyes and breathes in the scent he misses most.

Rest turns to disorientation as Bruce is jogged awake by the feeling of his head jostling against something that feels nothing like a pillow. As his senses return, he realizes he's being carried over someone's shoulder—his butler's, of course. He's too old to be carried, but Alfred doesn't mind that.

In the daytime, the boy tries his best to be older, stronger, as much of a man as he can manage. At night, he can't help being a child. He closes his eyes tightly and remains limp, not wanting to lose the comfort Alfred provides.

Two corridors later, Bruce finds himself placed gently into bed, with his mother's pillow under his head and his favorite quilt around him.

"Faker," whispers a low voice near his ear. He's left with a smile on his face and the feeling of a calloused hand brushing his forehead.


	43. Worthwhile

**Worthwhile**

Bruce Wayne isn't usually that hard to find. For the past several weeks, he's been hunkered down in his favorite sitting room, the one the Wayne family used to use for their evenings together, evenings filled with talking and laughing and playing games. The boy has turned it into a command center, of sorts, with scraps of paper on the wall and files littering the table. It's strangely symbolic, Alfred thinks, of what the boy has tried to do to himself—to take all the fun-loving, boyish tendencies and turn them into adult responsibility and solemnity.

This night, however, the butler can't find him. His first thought is the lairy girl, but a walk past her guestroom reveals a light on under the door and the sound of water draining into the tub in her bathroom, accompanied by the noise of feet sloshing moisture onto the tile floor. She's taken care of and contained, for the moment.

As Alfred looks through the house, his concern grows. It's been a while since the boy has actually injured himself; it seems as if boxing has, at least temporarily, relieved some of his compulsion toward self-harm. But the possibility is never far from the butler's mind.

The last wing Alfred tries is the one he rarely visits, the one containing the adult Waynes' bedroom and home offices. He goes in once in a while, long enough to wipe away dust, but he does little else. Bruce has given him no instructions about going through his parents' things, and the butler believes that some things should be left to the boy's discretion.

He looks into dark rooms containing sofas and computers, but he does not find the boy until he reaches the end of the hall and peeks into the bedroom of Thomas and Martha Wayne. Even now, when they've been gone for months, he feels strange stepping into it, as if he's invading a private world he's not meant to inhabit. He'd always felt strange about cleaning it, even though its owners had never minded.

Bruce is there, curled up on his parents' bed like he's all of three years old, holding a pillow and wearing an expression so peaceful it almost startles the butler. This is one time no nightmares have come to mar the child's sleep; he can tell.

Alfred stands silently, watching and thinking. He does not want to disturb the boy, but he is well aware of what grief can do to the mind in the middle of the night. If Bruce wakes up in his parents' room, his peace may well turn to terror. Better if he awakens in his own room, with his own things around him.

As gently as he can, the butler picks up the sleeping child and arranges him over his shoulder. It's a good thing, he thinks, that Bruce is slight. Before he turns off the lamp, he picks up the pillow the boy was holding. Perhaps it will comfort him to wake up and find it close by.

It's not long before Alfred feels the child's limp body stir slightly, and he knows that Bruce is awake. The boy doesn't speak, so he doesn't either. He simply tightens his hold and carries the boy to bed, just as he's always done.

In the daytime, they are butler and master, teacher and pupil, guardian and charge. It's in the night that Alfred feels like a father and lets himself hope that Bruce feels like a son. "Faker," he whispers, brushing the hair off the boy's forehead.

Often, days with Bruce are long and contentious. When night comes, however, it all feels more than worthwhile.


	44. Denial, Part I

_Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief. The first one is denial._

**Denial, Part I**

Bruce is running, leading the Cat-girl through his house, faster than he's ever run before. She scampers away so fast it's like she has wings. He hesitates. Something pulls him back to the Manor like a magnet, even though he knows he should follow Selina and run for his life.

Alfred.

Bruce's mind is going a mile a minute. It hasn't always been this way. In the first days after the horrible night, he hardly spoke to his butler, if he could help it. Somehow, it felt like acknowledging Alfred's new role in his life would mean he was accepting his parents' fate, agreeing that they were gone, letting them be dead. Acting like Alfred didn't exist was his way of trying to preserve his world as it had been.

The boy follows Selina with the command to run ringing in his ears. He wouldn't go if the butler hadn't ordered him.

His parents had always been his authority; Alfred had been quietly supportive. Things changed as soon as the bodies of Thomas and Martha Wayne fell to the asphalt. The butler became the rule-maker. In the early days, he'd ignored Alfred's orders. It wasn't that Bruce minded his rules; it was the change he resisted, the admission that nothing would ever be the same.

Leaving the Wayne Manor grounds feels like betrayal. Bruce feels tears sting his eyes, but he keeps going.

At first, he'd tried to tell himself that Alfred didn't matter. That was before he realized that his butler mattered most of all. Resisting change was like standing on the bannister of the Wayne Manor staircase, caught between falling and solid ground. You can only balance for so long before you have to make a decision which way you're going to go. He was afraid that finally turning toward Alfred, letting him in, would feel like falling into an unknown abyss. Instead, it felt like stepping onto solid earth and having something rock-solid to hold onto. He'd never been so surprised in his life.

Bruce turns and takes one last look at his house, and he feels the truth like a bullet through the heart: Alfred Pennyworth is the most important person in his world.


	45. Denial, part II

_E__lizabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief. The first one is denial._

**Denial, Part II**

Alfred's instinct takes over the moment he understand's the bloodied woman's true intentions. He punches, kicks, wrestles, anything to buy time for the children on the floor above him.

Instinct was what carried him through the first days after the Wayne murders. The boy barely spoke to him, and he barely spoke to the boy. He had been a butler for many years, but he began to feel circumstances pulling him toward something else, a new role he'd never planned to inhabit. Thomas and Martha had put him in their will; he'd seen it as kind recognition of his role in their son's life. He'd never expected tragedy to make their promise a reality.

The butler screams Bruce's name, as if his voice will carry miles. He doesn't expect to be heard, but he can't help trying.

For a while, after the night that changed everything, he'd told himself that being ignored by the boy didn't matter. He was just a butler, and Bruce was his employer. After all, hadn't Thomas Wayne's will insisted that his son be allowed to go his own way? But it never worked. He could feel the child's pain like it was his own, the need for something more than a servant. And he wanted to be more, so desperately that when he finally let himself feel it, his desire almost frightened him.

Two police officers are stopped in their tracks by the tone of Alfred's voice. He only has one mission: to find Bruce Wayne and bring the boy back alive and safe. The butler is not just worried for his ward's life; he can't bear to imagine the fear coursing through his vulnerable child's veins. The boy has been through too much; he does not deserve more.

When Thomas and Martha Wayne were alive, Alfred had always admired the way they'd protected their only child, sheltering him from the worst horrors of their ever-crumbling city while opening his eyes to the good he might someday do. After their deaths, he was as committed to Bruce's physical safety as he'd ever been, but he hadn't understood how to protect the fragile emotions of a child whose complicated personality he struggled to comprehend. He'd shied away from that part of the task, but the boy had no one else to perform it. Alfred had finally taken up the duty as he did everything—with determination and perseverance. He expected to be rebuffed and pushed away, but instead he found that underneath Bruce's cool exterior, there was still a little boy who simply wanted to feel safe.

Alfred leaves the Manor without a look back. He will not come back until his mission is fulfilled. He will save Bruce Wayne or die trying. The boy is everything to him.


	46. Anger, Part I

_Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief. The second is anger._

**Anger, Part I**

Bruce follows the girl through the streets and into a place that's like nothing he's ever seen. He's confused, but he trusts her—for the moment. She is the one who knows how to navigate this new world.

He does not trust easily. He remembers Jim Gordon, that long-ago day, reminding him that he had someone to care for him. At the time, he did not want to trust Alfred. Of course, he had always trusted the man to be a butler and something like an uncle, but he did not want to go further, to learn another person and accept that person into a part of his heart that felt irrevocably broken. He was too angry then, and a great deal of that anger had spilled over onto Alfred.

Ivy Pepper has wide, haunted eyes and long, red hair. The boy recognizes his own pain in her, so he cannot be unkind. She's only a child, and he knows what it is to be a child and lose everything.

He did not always want to be a child. Part of him still doesn't. In the first days and weeks, what had made him angriest was Alfred's insistence on treating him like a little boy. He did not want to play, but the butler had forced him—until his anger bubbled up and came out at the end of a cane. He learned that day that sometimes, playing hard could be a way to release some of the anger threatening to eat him alive.

He looks different now, dressed in an outfit from places he's never been. He wonders who owned it before him, whose life story he's wearing.

His own life story is one of pain and anger, but there's more than that. He remembers his mother explaining Graham Greene to him when he'd seen a book called _The End of the Affair _in her hands. "You can't be angry with someone without believing in them, Bruce," she'd said. "That's what this book is about." He hadn't understood then, but in the weeks after her death, he came to understand very well. His every attempt to rebuff Alfred, to keep the man at arms' length and act as if he needed no one at all, was stymied by his own intense feelings toward the butler, a mixture of anger and longing and need that he tried desperately to hide until it burst out of him because he could not contain it any more. Alfred was too real to him to ever be less than family.

Bruce feels nothing but concern when he thinks of his butler. Selina wants to disappear, and he follows, but all he can think of is the impossible possibility that Alfred could be gone. He has plenty of anger, but it's no longer directed toward the man who is his whole world. It's turned straight toward anyone who would dare to hurt Alfred Pennyworth.


	47. Anger, Part II

_Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief. The second is anger. _

**Anger, Part II**

Alfred is furious. He can't even remember the last time he was so angry. Well, that's not entirely true, he remembers ruefully.

The day he found Bruce Wayne with a burn in the middle of his hand awakened anger so vehement it shook him to his core and blazed white-hot for a few seconds, until he saw the boy's terrified face. That's how it was at the beginning. He was as angry as Bruce, though the anger was not at his charge. He hated himself for the times he'd let it touch the boy. Those first weeks taught him the power of anger as he'd never understood it before—a terrible, wounding power that could extinguish the flickering light in the boy's eyes like a guttering candle. He was far from perfect, but after he finished holding Bruce and bandaging his burn, he vowed that his anger, however vehemently it chose to burn, would not touch his child. The boy was too precious.

The butler allows his fury to sharpen his mind. He's been a soldier, and he knows that anger, when it is controlled, can be a deadly weapon. He could be deadlier than Bullock, though he is well aware that the policeman doesn't realize it.

Bruce, too, had underestimated him, at first. He'd tried not to blame the boy, but anger still welled up in him at the obvious signs that the child thought of him as butler and employee, but resisted thinking of him as more. Bruce did not know, could not understand, what it cost a bachelor butler to throw his entire life into the task of parenting. But fathering meant selflessness, so Alfred did not give up, even when the boy's attitude touched the anger in him and tempted him to reject his promise. He would never, ever give in to the temptation. Bruce was too precious to him, even on his worst days.

There is nothing Alfred wants less than to consult criminals to find out what he wants to know. The very idea fills him with rage because of how deeply opposed it is to everything he chooses to be. But he lets his anger be subsumed by single-minded purpose. The boy is more important.

That's what it came down to. Alfred was angry from the moment he rushed to the scene of the Wayne murders and gathered his ward in his arms. He was angry at himself, angry at the shooter, and angry at the city that produced such heinous acts. But even such blazing righteous fury was so much less important than his care for the boy that it was like a flashlight compared to an inferno. Anger, he learned, could not consume what had already been consumed by love.

Bullock leads the way; Alfred follows. He does not think of his own safety or comfort. He is still angry, but that anger is motivated by love so strong it could destroy a city or rebuild a child.


	48. Bargaining, Part I

_Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief. The third is bargaining. _

**Bargaining, Part I**

Bruce follows the girl into the lair of the fence. He knows what a fence is, but he has no idea what such a person really looks like or does. Selina begins the transaction, starts bargaining to get what she can for the trinkets she's stolen—_his _things.

After the initial shock and pain of his loss, it took ages for Bruce to admit that he could not live without Alfred. That's when he started bargaining with himself and with his butler. One foot in, one foot out. Accept meals, study when he's told, let Alfred into his research—but still wall himself away, stay up into the night drawing pictures of his nightmares, refuse the therapy the butler suggests.

The boy can't keep quiet. He means to let the Cat-girl handle things, but he's not a doormat, and he knows the value of what he owns; his parents taught him that. Selina may see him as quiet and detached, but some traits are only skin deep. Underneath his skin, he's on fire. He can't just stand by, not even when he's afraid.

When he was five and a half, Bruce's father taught him to swim. He hated water at first, but then he started putting in toes and then feet and finally dangling his leg into the swimming pool, up to the knee, while the rest of him stayed dry on the side. Thomas Wayne, always a patient man, never raised his voice or expressed frustration. He simply fixed his progeny with a meaningful stare and said, "You can't bargain with water, Bruce. You have to either come in or stay out." The boy wasn't entirely sure what "bargain" meant, but he understood the meaning of the statement. Even at five, he didn't like to take risks, but the big, frightening pool held his hero, the person he trusted most in the world. Standing up on thin legs, he gave his father back a stare as intense as the man's had been, then made a flying leap into the pool. He connected with wetness and comfort at the same time, finding himself cradled by warm water and strong arms.

Bruce realizes in moments that it wasn't about the bargaining at all. The malevolent man has plans for him and his companion that go far beyond a simple exchange of stolen property.

The boy tried hard, for a long time, to forget his father's words about bargaining because he knew they didn't just apply to water. He couldn't let Alfred in and keep him out at the same time. It simply didn't work. HIs physical needs were met; he never doubted the older man would see to that. As for the rest—well, on-time meals didn't assuage his longing for something far deeper, and the occasional thanks to his butler didn't lessen his guilt about rebuffing all attempts at comfort or closeness.

The boy is herded into a room with the girl, and he determines that if he's going to die, he'll at least do it helping Selina. He knows what it is to shut out the most important person in your world, to bargain with his affection and barter with your own heart. He refuses to make the same mistake twice. He will sacrifice himself for the girl since he can't sacrifice himself for the butler who's become his hero.


	49. Bargaining, Part II

_Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief. The third is bargaining._

**Bargaining, Part II**

Alfred follows Bullock into the lair of the Fish. He is well aware of the organized crime that runs rampant in Gotham, but he has no desire to see it face-to-face, to be forced to bargain with people he considers to be less worthy than the ants under his black shoes.

The butler was never one for bargaining. Years of military training and service honed him into a weapon who was much more comfortable doing the shooting than asking the questions. It wasn't that he enjoyed brutality for its own sake, but he had no qualms about putting evil in its place. Surely, parenting could be handled in a similarly absolute sort of way. The problem, he found, was that Bruce Wayne didn't respond to barked orders and stern disapproval. He simply went into himself to a place Alfred couldn't follow. Ever the pragmatist, his butler tried again, a different tactic. He bartered with the boy, making unspoken bargains about schoolwork and mealtimes and safety, but giving up when it came to sleep, the chlld's endless research—and his soul.

Fish Mooney isn't terribly difficult for Alfred to read. It's not that she's uncomplicated, but he's perceptive. It's flattery, an appeal to her better nature, he decides, that will touch her enough to get her to offer help. Her flashiness repulses him, but he's glad that it makes her an open book to him. He needs a bargaining chip.

Bargaining is a bad way to reach a heart, the butler realized, after he and Bruce lived in and around it for a few weeks. Oh, surely, it could achieve compliance, but that was no longer enough for Alfred because he could tell that it was not enough for the boy. Bruce needed a guardian, in every sense of the word, not a business partner who negotiated terms with him every day.

The woman likes him. Alfred can tell that in an instant. She reads him, but not as well as he reads her. He doesn't want to be in her debt. That's the problem with bargaining; you have to give something to get something.

Alfred let go. It wasn't worth Bruce's acquiescence to a few superficial things if, in return, he had to let the boy pull away, shut him out, stay in his own dark world. But, in letting go, he offered something bigger than he'd ever offered before: his love, with no strings attached. He asked for nothing in return, nothing at all. Truthfully, he couldn't help it.

Alfred is silent on the ride to the godforsaken place he and Bullock have been told to go. There's nothing more to say, really. He will die for the boy, or he will live to save the boy. That's all there is left, no more bargaining needed.


	50. Depression, Part I

_Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief. The fourth is depression._

**Depression, Part I**

Bruce is pretty sure he's not going to make it. It's similar to the feeling he had the night his parents were murdered, but it's duller somehow. Having faced death before, facing it again feels less acute.

There was a dullness to the boy's life after he realized that he couldn't survive alone. He did not want to give in, so he pulled away, burying himself in mounds of files so deep that he was fairly sure he could drown in them and never emerge again. At least, he hoped he could.

The boy tries to calm his nerves, to reconcile himself to the fact that he cannot escape a trained assassin. For all of his efforts to conquer fear, he is still afraid. The dull acceptance of his fate only lasts until he sees Alfred's eyes in his mind.

"There's no one to take me from" had been a wish, a promise to himself, an attempt to desperately escape more heartbreak. The boy could not give in, or he was afraid his heart would shatter into a million more pieces. He was already broken in two. Another break, he thought, would mean he never recovered. So he refused to look at his butler's face when he said the words, trying to convince himself that he could live without the connection he needed most.

The littlest Wayne now knows what it means to feel fear for another, not just for himself. He is concerned for Selina, but she escapes. It is Alfred whose fate he doesn't know. It's even worse to realize that the man who loves him most in the world doesn't know if he's alive, either. He does not want to die, because that means he will never be able to give Alfred what he's wanted all along: his love, unconditional and unlimited.

It was Alfred who gave first. From childhood, Bruce understood his butler's gruffness and occasional short temper. That didn't matter. What he felt, even when he didn't want to admit it, was affection—in meals and light touches of his shoulder and the patient way Alfred took him through his schoolwork. When his life had most threatened to plunge him into unending dullness, his guardian had continued to hold him with calloused hands that had seen battle and pain and endless work.

The boy runs. He cannot die. He cannot fail to live long enough to tell Alfred the truth, that the darkness of his world is turning bright because every day, the butler's care gently paints over a little bit of the black that covers his soul, until the light has started to take him over once again.

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><p><strong>AN: Wow, Chapter 50! Thank you to everyone who has stuck around with this story. All of your comments and reviews are amazing. I'm looking forward to the second half of Gotham Season 1!**


	51. Depression, Part II

_Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief. The fourth is depression._

**Depression, Part II**

Everything is confusing, but that's all right. Alfred was trained, long ago, to keep his senses sharp when everything around him is swirling. He only has one thought: Bruce. He will not let himself calculate the odds that the boy is no longer alive.

Perhaps the depression began the night of the murders. Perhaps it was when he felt the slight, vulnerable little boy hit him like a freight train, wanting comfort. The butler did not know how to be a father then, and he felt less like he knew what he was doing as the days went by. Still, the worst of it didn't set in until he realized that the boy still felt alone. The words "there's no one to take me from" broke his heart more than he'd ever thought it could be broken.

Bullock wants to wait for backup. Alfred does not wait. There is no waiting where the boy is concerned. If he had to, he would put Bruce Wayne on his back and carry the boy home to Wayne Manor. If there is no more boy to take home, he feels like he will disappear, as if there is nothing left of him to matter.

It was, strangely, the deepest heartbreak that made the butler realize he'd completed the transformation from employee to something far more. Before the Horrible Night, Bruce had belonged to Thomas and Martha Wayne. His coming to belong to Alfred had not happened all at once. It had been a journey of small moments punctuated by the butler holding him, comforting him, yelling at him, schooling him, and making sure he was fed and clothed. Many of these things he'd done when the elder Waynes were alive. Somehow, when they were gone, the little acts meant something very different.

Alfred finally sees the boy. He is prone, frightened, and, for once, looks his real age. But he is alive.

Alfred knew that the boy belonged to him long before Bruce was willing to admit it, but even between and among the pain, there was deeper beauty to be found. The butler did not know how to be a father, but he had learned how to love the boy, had learned that being a parent means love so unconditional it can hold the most resistant heart in the world in its gentle grasp. So he held, and he waited.

"Bruce." He calls out the boy's name, and it's the sweetest word he's ever said.


	52. Acceptance, Part I

_Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief. The fifth is acceptance. _

**Acceptance, Part I**

"Fancy seeing you here."

Bruce looks his butler full in the face, noting the worry and relief blended in the blue eyes that have watched him since birth. He finally lets himself see, lets his mind and heart realize what he's been avoiding since the terrible night: He belongs to Alfred, and Alfred belongs to him. There's no question any more.

He began to give in to the knowledge that day on Tommy Elliot's front steps. It wasn't that Alfred had defended him or that he'd approved of Bruce's retaliation. As comforting as those things were, it had been the simple act of calling out his name that had sealed the deal. Alfred's voice had silenced the anger that threatened to do more damage than the boy intended. He'd understood, from that moment on, that he and Alfred were connected in a way he couldn't deny.

"You all right?"

The butler's voice carries concern so deep he could dive into it and never come to the end. The boy feels a combination of guilt and reassurance. Care that big feels as if it could put his broken heart back together, but that care has been his for the taking all along, and he feels sick at the thought that he's disregarded it.

He remembers day after day of instructions ignored, questions about his needs gone unanswered, meals uneaten. Somehow, in spite of his resistance, Alfred's care has never been withdrawn.

"I'm fine."

He is fine, finer than he's been since his parents' deaths. There's nothing better than knowing you're loved unconditionally, that no matter how selfish or unaware you've been, someone bigger and stronger has been looking out for you all along. Bruce had thought he'd lost that forever, and he'd been too blind to see that it was right in front of him.

Boxing had almost forced emotion from him that he hadn't wanted to display. The physical connection was more intense and visceral a thing than he usually sought to experience, and being so close to the butler had made him want to give in, to finally sink into the authority and protection he was offered. It's not until he's looking down into Alfred's face that he understands: the offer had always been there, and it always would be. That feels like the biggest gift in the world.

"How are you?"

Alfred comes closer, bridging the physical distance, but the boy isn't sure how to bridge the emotional distance. He wants so much to say what he feels, but he doesn't know how.

Another day had been similar, the day he'd asked his butler to teach him to fight. That had been the first attempt, the first time he'd let himself come close enough to feel the connection he could no longer deny. He hadn't known what to say then either, how to thank Alfred for the gift of a father's watch and a butler's support. So he'd asked for help, and that had been the right thing. This time, he asks another question, but it's far more important. If anything had happened to Alfred—but it didn't. The older man is solid and whole in front of him.

"You really scared me, Master Bruce."

The boy wants to hug his butler more than he's wanted anything for a long time, but suddenly a few inches of distance feels like a lot. For the moment, though, it's all right to stand still, facing Alfred, and feel the love between them.

At one point, Bruce had tried to tell himself Alfred didn't care, that a guardian who truly loved him wouldn't yell him down from the roof or get angry at his self-harm. But that had been the biggest lie of all. The butler had only ever lost his temper because he cared so very much. He knows now that his safety is Alfred's first and only priority.

"If you died, who employs butlers any more?"

Bruce is pretty sure he doesn't deserve Alfred Pennyworth. After all, who is he to claim the life of someone else, someone who'd only ever signed on to be the family butler? Alfred gets some kind of salary; the boy has no idea what it is. It can't possibly be enough.

For so long, he'd drifted in a sea of his own grief, oblivious to anything around him. Now he sees things as they really were, his mind filled with all the big and small ways Alfred has cared for him from dawn to dusk, through anger and sadness and indifference.

In an instant, the boy wraps his arms around his butler, trying to communicate everything he can't find the words to say.

Alfred's arms close around him, too, so tight, so strong, that all encompassing feeling of safety that he remembers from his earliest childhood days.

Bruce presses his face into the older man's shoulder, and the truth fills him with a warm, satisfying peace that he hasn't felt since his parents' death. Family doesn't leave you when you're selfish and cross and unintentionally cruel. Their love protects you even on your very worst days, and it asks nothing in return. Alfred Pennyworth is family, and that is the best thing of all.

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><p>For wearegrootforever, a wonderful friend who let me borrow some of her words.<p> 


	53. Acceptance, Part II

_Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief. The fifth is acceptance. _

**Acceptance, Part II**

"Fancy seeing you here."

The boy is in one piece, unharmed, with fear in his eyes but no blood on him. Alfred is glad he put his coat on over the aching wound on his arm. He does not want Bruce to see his injury and worry that the last person he has was ever in danger of being taken away.

At first, after the horror, he had not understood why the boy went off by himself and sought solace in pain and risk. He could not comprehend why his ward seemed to want to shun the only connection left to both of them. They had always been close; at the time they needed each other most, Bruce had pulled away. It was only as the days went by that he began to understand: the child who had lost so much could not bear to let himself love fully in case he lost again. The butler had known little of parenting, but he had understood instinctively that the best response was consistency, reassuring the boy with his every action that he would never leave.

"You all right?"

That's all Alfred cares about any more. If Bruce is all right, the world is all right. He knows much of Gotham, of the twists and turns and ugly compromises that make up a city so dark. But he has narrowed his focus to one thing and one thing only, his promise to Thomas and Martha Wayne to protect their only child. This day, he almost tasted failure, and he thought it would kill him. He does not care for the boy because it is his duty; that might be easier. But the boy is all that he has, and that bond goes far deeper than obligation.

The butler had never known how absolutely consuming frustration could be until the day he'd found the boy with a burn in the middle of his hand. In that moment, all the fear of his own inadequacy, his confusion about Bruce's behavior, and his grief had united to push him further toward rage than he'd been in years. But rage is not the opposite of love. It's so close the two overlap like candle flames melting into one another. Alfred had seen the boy's fear, and the desire to comfort and protect had taken him over like he was drunk. That intoxication had never fully left him since that day.

"I'm fine."

How can he be fine? Physically, he's whole, but Alfred knows the horrors that he's seen and the terrors that still haunt his sleep. Bruce stands above the butler, but there is no mistaking how small he is, how childlike. And yet, there's a relief in his face and in the relaxed way he stands, as if he really is becoming whole. Perhaps—Alfred dares to let himself think—perhaps knowing that someone has been searching for him has somehow filled up a little bit of the hole in the boy's heart.

Day after day, Alfred's job has been trying to find ways to fill that hole, whether by forcing Bruce out into the world or engaging him in physical play to distract his overactive mind. The child has rebuffed him plenty of times, but there have also been the moments he's smiled or laughed inadvertently, showing small flashes of the little boy who still lives inside him. People would say the butler is extraordinarily selfless; he doesn't think so. It brings him too much pleasure to watch Bruce heal.

"How are you?"

The boy's full attention is on him, scanning his face, looking for reassurance that the one constant in his life is all right. Alfred is warmed by the Intensity of his concern, but there's more to it than that. Bruce is hesitant, trying to say what he can't find words to express. The butler understands; he feels the same way. That's why he comes closer.

For a while, after the tragedy, it had seemed like the boy was ignoring him, which had been strange. Bruce had grown up a considerate child who treated his butler with respect. It was not like him to be dismissive or unkind. Alfred had attributed to apparent selfishness to Bruce's grief, but he'd gradually realized it had a more specific cause. Ignoring the butler and refusing to communicate were the boy's clumsy ways of trying to avoid further pain. He couldn't bear to acknowledge their bond because it ran so very deep, and to give it importance meant giving it the power to hurt him. Alfred did not blame him. He'd fought many of the same feelings himself. The difference was that, like it or not, he was no longer just a butler. He was a father, and that meant hanging on even when Bruce tried to let go.

"You really scared me, Master Bruce."

Alfred needs the boy to know, to fully understand how important he is to him. Thomas and Martha Wayne are long buried now, but he is resolved that the vulnerable child in front of him will never live a day without knowing he's valued. The butler does not know the exact moment he went from being a physical protector to being determined to become the boy's shelter in every way, but the transition is now complete. He stands eye-to-eye with the boy, and he knows without any doubt that he has never loved anyone else more.

Few people would think that Alfred Pennyworth is ever afraid, but his deepest fear after he was left alone with the boy was that he would not be enough. Perhaps Bruce would never come to him, would never acknowledge the bond that had linked them since his birth. Maybe he would fall deeper and deeper into the darkness of his pain. But then—on the steps of a bully's mansion—things had changed. For an intense moment, the butler and the child had connected through fist and blood and justice. After that, he had not been afraid any more. Bruce belonged to him. It was only a matter of time until he acknowledged it fully.

"If you died, who employs butlers any more?"

He wants to hold the boy, but he waits, seeing the longing in Bruce's eyes and letting him make the decision. They understand each other now; there is no separation between them. The love the butler feels is so strong it surprises him again. He understands now why parents give their lives for their children.

For so long, he's wished for a moment like this, where the boy's pretense and formality finally give way to honesty and connection. He'd seen a flicker of it when the boy had asked him to teach him to fight, and he'd let himself hope the walls between them had begun to crumble.

Bruce wraps him in a crushing embrace, and he finally knows those walls have fallen.

Alfred hugs his child as tightly as he can, trying to communicate the truth that years' worth of love doesn't evaporate when tragedy comes along, that it only grows and expands until it's big enough to provide protection and shelter for a lifetime.

The boy's head against the butler's shoulder is a precious weight, reminding Alfred that he's still alive, still real, still filled with purpose. When it comes to Bruce Wayne, purpose is synonymous with love, and love is synonymous with purpose. He can no longer separate the two any more than he can figure out where his heart ends and the boy's begins.

* * *

><p>Also for wearegrootforever.<p> 


	54. Familiar

**Familiar**

Bruce is lying on the sofa with his head on his butler's knee, reading a graphic novel while Alfred reads the newspaper. It's a familiar position. When he'd been very young, he'd often used Alfred's knee as a pillow. This time, it was simply a matter of the butler taking up a third of his favorite sofa when he'd wanted to lie down.

"I'm glad to see you've gotten some of your comic books back out, Master Bruce," says Alfred's low voice.

"Selina reminded me that I should take more time for recreational purposes," the boy answers.

His butler laughs. "Far be it from you to let yourself enjoy anything without a constructive purpose."

"You're not exactly out every night," Bruce retorts drily.

"If I was, who'd look after you, you cheeky boy?"

With that, Bruce finds the room spinning around him as Alfred grabs him in a tight hold with his feet in the air and his head inches from the ground.

"What are you doing?" he squeaks out.

"Training, Master Bruce," says Alfred, who sounds mightily pleased with himself. "You'll have to learn to be on guard for anything." The boy is flipped up and set gently back on the sofa, and Alfred sits beside him, taking up his paper again as if nothing happened.

"Training, my eye," says Bruce indignantly, but he can't help smiling as he smoothes his rumpled button-down shirt. He picks up his novel and slides back down until his feet are propped up on the armrest and his head is on Alfred's knee. This time, the butler rests his left arm across Bruce's shoulders.

"I'm glad you're all right, lad."

As the events of the day before flash through his mind, the boy answers quietly, "You too, Alfred."


	55. Rest

**Rest**

Alfred sits down on the sofa in Bruce's favorite room. He knows very well that it's where the boy likes to curl up in the evening and often fall asleep. Bruce has spent many a night there since his parents have been gone.

The young master is seated at the table, still perusing the latest crop of articles he's printed, filing some away and stacking others to be added to his pinboard of evidence. The butler doesn't know if the child will sit with him, but he hopes so. He would never voice it aloud, but he longs for closeness. He can't stop thinking about the previous day when he'd almost lost the boy to Selina's assassins. Children may be resilient; old men with only one thing in the world to protect are less so.

The grandfather clock chimes 9:00 before Bruce finally shuts his files, picks up a brightly-colored comic book, and comes over to the sofa. Alfred studiously reads the paper but watches the boy out of the corner of his eye. To his satisfaction, his ward takes a seat on the other end, yawning.

The two read in companionable silence for half an hour, and Alfred finds himself ensconced in a story about the history of Gotham's downtown sector. He hardly notices when Bruce sprawls out across the cushions until he feels the boy's head on his knee.

The butler steals a look down, and his mind casts back to a time when his ward was much smaller and younger, and he'd enjoyed falling asleep with his head on Alfred's knee with the butler's arm around him. The older man had never really understood it. His knee was a sharp, bony sort of thing, and he didn't think it could possibly serve as a very comfortable pillow. But Bruce had never seemed to mind.

Uncharacteristically, the boy is reading for pleasure, and Alfred teases him gently, eliciting a response in kind. For once, the butler indulges a purely silly whim. He's still far stronger than Bruce, and he wrestles him as he'd done when the boy was a tiny little thing who'd laughed with abandon. The preteen Bruce tries to look annoyed, but the butler sees the smile that sneaks onto his pale face.

They return to their respective reading materials, and Alfred finds himself being used as a pillow once again. The boy seems to need to closeness as much as he does, so the butler wraps an arm around his thin shoulders the way he'd done in years past.

"I'm glad you're all right, lad." They haven't spoken about the previous day since their reunion, and he can't help making sure, once again, that Bruce is well aware of how he feels.

"You too, Alfred," the boy answers, turning on his side and closing his eyes as if the older man's knee is somehow the most comfortable resting place in the world.


	56. Gone

**Gone**

"Alfred," says Bruce, on a quiet Monday morning, "it's my mother's birthday." The boy looks up from his perusal of his literature text.

"I know, Master Bruce," the butler answers. "Is there anything special you'd like to do?"

The boy thinks for a moment, trying to decide. "I'd like to visit the florist and the cemetery," he says.

"Very well," the older man answers. "I think we can eschew school for one day. I'll get your coat."

Bruce doesn't say anything as Alfred helps him into his wool coat and puts on his own against the winter chill. He's not sure what he feels. Emptiness, mostly. Part of him wants to let the day pass as if it's like any other, to try to ignore the memories crowding his mind. But the rest of him can't bear not to do something to honor the woman with the beautiful hands and soft voice who gave him life.

Alfred drives him to the florist where his father used to order all the flowers for anniversaries, Mother's Day, and any other time he'd wanted to surprise his wife. Bruce enters decisively, with Alfred just behind him.

"Bruce Wayne!" says a smiling, middle-aged woman at the register. "I haven't seen you since you were small."

"Hello, Mrs. Bradford," he says quietly. "I'd like an arrangement with white lilies, red roses, and the purplest lilacs you can find."

The woman's smile leaves her face, and the boy can tell that she knows what the flowers are for. She's made hundreds of arrangements for Martha Wayne in her lifetime. She knows what the woman's favorite flowers were.

"I'll make something special," she says, a soft look in her eyes. "I'll put you right at the top of the list. I need about two hours."

"What do I owe you?" Bruce asks gravely.

Mrs. Bradford looks into his eyes for a second. "This one's on me. I know what day it is."

The boy blinks. He doesn't want to get emotional in front of someone he hardly knows. "Oh—ok," he says, turning to Alfred. "We'll be back."

He's about to get back into the car when his butler asks an unusual question. "Would you like to ride up front with me, Master Bruce?"

"Yeah," he replies. Funny how Alfred always seems to know when he's feeling particularly lonely. Sometimes, when he'd been very young, Alfred had put him in the front seat to keep an eye on him. It's been years since then.

Bruce takes his seat on the passenger's side, staring straight ahead through the windshield. "Are you hungry?" Alfred asks, taking his own place.

"No," the boy replies. "Let's just drive until the flowers are ready."

"As you wish," says the butler, starting the car. "Would you like to talk about your mum?"

Bruce turns his head and stares out the side window. "Too many things," he says quietly.

"Do you have a favorite memory, Master Bruce?" the butler tries again.

"Just—just her," says the boy, his mind a jumble of smells and touches and whispers. "The way she walked, her perfume, her smile. I still can't—believe she's gone."

"Me either," Alfred answers.


	57. Remembered

**Remembered**

The butler drives along grimy downtown streets, wondering what's in the mind of the boy sitting next to him. It's a sad day for him, too. Martha Wayne had been something more than an employer—something like a sister. And part of him still blames himself for her death.

"I met your mum when she was young, you know," he finally begins. "She sat with me every day at the hospital when my father was dying, and when they finally turned off the life support, she held my hand until he passed. She hardly knew me, but it didn't matter."

"That's not my favorite memory, though." He turns to the boy, and he can tell Bruce is listening, though he doesn't look away from the window.

"That's from the night your mum and dad asked me to look after you if anything ever happened to them. You were barely nine months old, and your dad said he knew I could protect you. Your mum, though—she brought you over to me, and she said, 'Alfred, I know you'll take care of him because you love him,' and she kissed my cheek. I don't think I've ever blushed so hard in my life."

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see a smile at the corner of the boy's mouth. "She was a rare woman, your mum." He clears his throat, trying to say what is more difficult to express. "You're lucky to have had her, even for a short time, lad.

"I know it," Bruce answers. "So are you." They fall silent then, sharing both their grief and their bittersweet gratefulness.

Alfred makes a wide circuit around Gotham's downtown and finally makes his way back to the small florist shop. As before, Bruce squares his shoulders and leads the way inside. The butler is proud of the way he's begun to take responsibility.

On Mrs. Bradford's counter is a vase of flowers so lovingly crafted that even Alfred, who is hardly an authority on the florist's art, can tell it's uncommonly beautiful. "Here you are," says the gray-haired woman, handing the arrangement to Bruce.

"Thank you, Mrs. Bradford," he says dutifully. "My mother would have liked it." He turns tail and leaves the shop, getting back into the front seat before the butler even has time to open his door for him.

Alfred doesn't speak. He knows their next destination, and he drives to the outskirts of the city and to the calm green expanse of the cemetery where Thomas and Martha Wayne are laid to rest. The security officer knows him by sight and simply nods and opens the gate, and the butler drives to the secluded stretch of ground where the Wayne family plots lie.

This time, the boy waits for him to open his door, seeming hesitant to get out. He hasn't visited the graves since the funeral. There's no one else in sight, and Alfred kneels down next to his seated charge until he's at eye level and puts a hand on his knee. "Master Bruce, I'm going to walk away for a while to give you some privacy. You can decide what you'd like to do." The boy nods, pulling his coat tighter around him.

The butler walks several paces off and takes his seat on a stone bench, keeping his eyes on the boy to make sure he's safe. He watches as Bruce finally gets out of the car with flowers in hand and carefully places them in the iron holder atop Martha's grave, then sits down in front of it, facing the headstone. He can't hear what Bruce says, but he can see his lips moving, and he's glad. It will be good for the boy, he thinks, to talk about how he feels to the memory of the one person who could always untangle his complicated emotions.

After a long while, Bruce stands up, and Alfred takes it as his cue to rejoin him and pay his own respects. Like he did at the funeral, he reaches out to the boy, but this time, instead of a hand on the shoulder, he wraps his arm around Bruce so that it spans the front of both shoulders and pulls him closer. The boy's breathing is measured and calm. "I'm ready to leave," he finally says, breaking the physical contact.

"Very well," Alfred answers.

As they get back into the car, the butler looks at his ward and smiles sadly. "Master Bruce, your mum would be very proud of you. She always said you'd grow up to be something special."

The boy looks over at him and almost smiles back. "She wasn't wrong about you either, Alfred."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I'm trying to make the hiatus bearable for us all, so if you have suggestions for chapters/things you want to see, let me know! xx**


	58. The Scratch

**The Scratch**

Bruce comes into the kitchen, lured by the smell of spices. His parents had rarely gone there; it had been an understanding that butler and employers did not share the same domains. It was different for Bruce, as with generations of privileged children before him, who could go where they wished without the same restrictions. Now that he and Alfred are alone, those walls have crumbled even further, rather than strengthening, as they might have one day done if circumstances had been different.

"Hello, Master Bruce." As always, Alfred hears him coming. "Are you hungry?"

"Yes," answers the boy, pushing dark hair out of his eyes. "Algebra makes me famished."

Alfred laughs. "I can't say I blame you. You're better at it than I ever was. Come over here, and I'll let you put some of the last seasonings in the chili."

Bruce walks across the tile to the stovetop, coming to stand next to his butler, who has his jacket off and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up. The boy's eyes widen when he catches a glimpse of a large square bandage. "Alfred, what happened to your arm?"

"It's nothing, Master Bruce," comes the answer, as the older man stirs the vat of piping hot beans and meat.

The boy folds his arms. "You're not that much better at lying than I am. Out with it."

Alfred turns to him with an amused smile on his face. "The lad becomes the inquisitor, eh? If you must know, I acquired a scratch in that squabble with the lovely lady and her companions who came here to dispatch Miss Kyle."

"Looks like a lot more than a scratch. Why didn't you tell me?" Bruce's eyes narrow and fill with intensity.

"I didn't want to worry you," answers the butler.

"I'm not a child, Alfred," the boy snaps, though the vastness of the height and size difference between him and the man he's berating belie his words, even to himself.

The older man's expression softens as his hardens. "I'm nearly forty years older than you are, and I have at least eighty pounds on you. When you come up past my shoulder and somewhere near my weight class, I'll be very glad to think of you as an equal."

The boy glowers for a moment before smiling against his will, then quickly growing serious again. "I'm sorry you got hurt protecting me. I—should have been the one who got hurt. The reason Selina was here is because I said she could stay."

Alfred reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Protecting you is my job, Master Bruce, and I've never—regretted it." He takes the wooden spoon out of the chili and shakes it in the boy's direction. "But don't you get too relaxed, old son. I'm not going anywhere." The boy grins contentedly and takes his place next to his butler in front of the stove, holding his hand out for the shaker of chili powder that will finish their meal.


	59. Equals

**Equals**

Alfred checks on his ward, who, miracle of miracles, is actually curled up in his bed, sleeping peacefully. Out of habit, the butler pulls the blanket, half fallen onto the floor, back up and over the boy's slender frame. As he does so, he feels a twinge of pain from his still-healing arm.

_Stupid Alfred_, he thinks. He'd never meant to let the boy see his injury, knowing how much it would bother him. And why shouldn't it?

The butler remembers, with vivid clarity, the last days of his own father's life. He'd left his own life and career to answer the request of a dying man to take up a post he'd never planned to inhabit, though as soon as he'd met the Waynes, his misgivings had ceased.

But he recalls the emptiness of the moment when the beeping of machines had recorded the inescapable truth that he was an orphan. It hadn't mattered that he was a tall, strong man, battle-hardened and years into adulthood. He'd felt like a little boy. There was something unbearably bleak about knowing he was alone in the world. Even though oceans had separated them, the knowledge that his kind-eyed father, with his big hands and ready smile, was alive and well had comforted him and made him feel protected, even in the darkest of circumstances. Having that comfort ripped away brought stinging tears to his eyes.

Martha Wayne, who'd been holding his calloused hand in her smooth one, had squeezed her small fingers around his and held on tightly while the nurses came and went, recording the time and the event. When it was all over, she'd driven him home to the manor, instead of the other way around. Alfred Pennyworth, veteran of the special services and unflappable butler, had cried himself to sleep that night, his mind filled with memories of a London childhood and a father who had taught him how to be a man.

In the days that followed, he'd learned that working for the Wayne family didn't just mean formal interactions between master and servant. It meant laughter, shared meals when Thomas and Martha insisted, and evenings spent in each others' company. Thomas and Martha Wayne _liked _him. And gradually, serving them and having their friendship filled up some of the emptiness in his heart. It wasn't the same as what he'd lost, but he came to understand how fulfilling it could be.

In the end, losing Thomas and Martha had staggered Alfred nearly as much as losing his parents, but he doesn't let himself dwell on it. What he focuses on, as he watches the boy sleep, is how much he understands Bruce's pain. He knows what it is to be an orphan and what it is to find someone else to fill up some of the emptiness. He also knows what it is to lose them, and he understands the boy's terror at the idea that the last person he has could be taken away.

Of course, the real truth of it all is that Alfred worries for Bruce as much as Bruce worries for him. Perhaps they are equals after all, at least in the realm of loss and love. He is the boy's last shelter, but the boy is also his. He may have forty years and eighty pounds on Bruce, but he finds as much comfort in caring for the boy as the boy finds in being cared for.

"Are you all right, Alfred?" Bruce opens his sleepy eyes and looks up at the butler, who stands motionless by his bed, lost in thought.

"I'm fine," the older man answers. "Go back to sleep."

"You too," says the boy, turning on his side and closing his eyes. "We have a full day of sparring tomorrow, and I'll win if you're not careful."

Alfred smiles to himself. "Cheeky boy," he growls, as he leaves the room.


End file.
